There
is no such thing as a person whose real self you like every particle
of.
...But there is such
a thing as a
person whose real self you love every particle of.
And
this is why love is such an existential threat
to the techno-consumerist
order:
it exposes the lie.
This
is not to say that love is only about fighting.
Love is about
bottomless empathy,
born out of the heart’s revelation
that another
person is every bit as real as you are.
And this is why love, as I
understand it, is always specific.
Trying to love all of humanity may be
a worthy endeavor,
but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self,
on the self’s own moral or spiritual well-being.
Whereas, to love a
specific person,
and to identify with his or her struggles and joys
as
if they were your own,
you have to surrender some of your self.
Jonathan Franzen, NYT