Read and discussed a few passages in the Aphorisms on Love and Hate with Kim on the endless train rides somewhere between Vienna and Hallstatt. So much for my travel by trains. So much for my travel by any means. I bought this little booklet in the white-colored bookstore in the center of Bucharest, intended for moments like this. Our phones were out of battery, so I read out passage after passage in the almost empty carriage. The view outside the window remained constant for a long long time. The imposing mountains stood steadily under the unpredictably changing sunlight, regardless of how many trains and travelers rushed by without knowing where they're headed.
We had a long debate about truth and fact. We came to the agreement that truth is not necessarily true (as in subjective truth), and facts are a subset of truth. I have always acknowledged the differences in how two people perceive things, as a consequence of which we can only try to understand each other but never achieve a full understanding. We can only get infinitely close to each other, but never become each other. That's probably the ultimate tragedy in life. Misunderstanding, rather than understanding, is the basis, upon which we build our relationships with others. There is one interesting passage about sufferer and prepetrator. The pain that is suffered by the sufferer is not equal to the pain that is meant to be inflicted by the perpetrator. The perpetrator's lack of imagination (or the simple fact of him being him) results in his inability to comprehend the consequence of his action from the view of the sufferer. A man who hurts a woman hopelessly in love with him by leaving her (or the other way around) might be factually incapable of understanding the pain that he induces, therefore judging his guilt based on the pain she believes to have suffered as opposed to the pain he believes to have caused is by no means fair. This might sound harsh since we're wired to empathize with the weak and the wronged. Which would be more painful though, to know that someone hurt you so deeply because he intended to, or to know that someone hurt you so deeply without even giving a thought to it? That's another question to think about. Then came across this famous quote by La Rochefoucauld: Il est du véritable amour comme de l'apparition des esprits: tout le monde en parle, mais peu de gens en ont vu. Je n'ai pas vu l'apparition des esprits, mais j'ai vu le véritable amour certainement :). Though what does it matter? A friend concluded the other night, after hearing my lengthy story of dispairingly and dramatically falling in and out of love (only because I was asked), more in my own mind than in reality, that there will always be a person that we love the most in our life. But equally true is that there will always be a person with whom we will be the happiest (note: not they will make us the happiest). And equally true is that, these are often not the same person. At some point you learn to restrain your so-called feelings, as much for protecting your soul as for protecting your brain. Then everything is fine. Everything is fine, with your aching epiphany that "true love" is neither true, nor a necessity.
1 Comment
Jinlei
8/2/2020 09:43:51
Thank you.
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