
All That Is

And I feel like maybe I have no idea. That I’ve got to forty-five years of age and I really don’t know. And people talk about it all the time like it’s, you know, something real, something you can touch—like when we talk about love, we’re all talking about the same thing. But we’re not, are we? It isn’t a real thing. It isn’t anything. And sometime
... See moreLisa Jewell • None of This Is True: A Novel
you and your beloved did not believe that your lives were finite, neither one of you could take your lives to be at stake and there would be no urgency to do anything with your time. You could never care for yourselves, for one another, or for the commitment that you share, since you would have no sense of fragility. By the same token, you could fe
... See moreMartin Hägglund • This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom
Suppose that the earthly lives she and I shared for a few years are in reality only the basis for, or prelude to, or earthly appearance of, two unimaginable, supercosmic, eternal somethings. Those somethings could be pictured as spheres or globes. Where the plane of Nature cuts through them—that is, in earthly life—they appear as two circles (circl
... See moreMartin Hägglund • This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom
Love is a mystery. When it is there, everything looks heavenly. When it is gone, everything looks simply stale, meaningless. You could not have lived without this woman, and now you cannot live with this woman. And both are authentic states.