Love for love, and belief in belief
I am re-reading Everything is Illuminated (again), and I came across this passage:
And when Yankel said he would die for Brod, he certainly meant it, but that thing he would die for was not Brod, exactly, but his love for her. And when she said 'Father, I love you,' she was neither naive nor dishonest, but the opposite: she was wise and truthful enough to lie. They reciprocated the great and saving lie -- that our love for things is greater than our love for our love for things -- willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life.
People love things, but often, people love the love for things more than they love the thing itself. This is something I have realized for a long time. Humans just *need* to love, whether it is something abstract like music or or something concrete like another person. The love for something can define you, and you begin to love the love more than the love for the thing.
I believe that this transcends from love to other areas as well, such as belief. People don't just believe, they believe in the belief.
And when Yankel said he would die for Brod, he certainly meant it, but that thing he would die for was not Brod, exactly, but his love for her. And when she said 'Father, I love you,' she was neither naive nor dishonest, but the opposite: she was wise and truthful enough to lie. They reciprocated the great and saving lie -- that our love for things is greater than our love for our love for things -- willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life.
People love things, but often, people love the love for things more than they love the thing itself. This is something I have realized for a long time. Humans just *need* to love, whether it is something abstract like music or or something concrete like another person. The love for something can define you, and you begin to love the love more than the love for the thing.
I believe that this transcends from love to other areas as well, such as belief. People don't just believe, they believe in the belief.