Heroes Not Zombies

I’ve been reading “Stoner”, by John Williams, which has been getting rave reviews in the UK in recent weeks. I’m enjoying it and can easily see why it’s been attracting such positive reviews, but today, I had one of those experiences you get when you read really great writing. Suddenly a phrase leapt out at me, stopping me in my tracks, catching my breath and sparking my thoughts….

…love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another

Oh, yes! Love isn’t a goal to be achieved, or a target to be hit, or a product to be purchased. It’s a process of attempting to know someone. In fact, it seems to me that it isn’t possible to know another unless that attempt at knowing grows out of love. (Incidentally, I also think one of the reasons why many people find it so hard to really know themselves, is a lack of self-compassion…or loving attitude towards the self)

But then Williams, in the very next page writes this about how Stoner thought about love –

he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence and the heart.

“a human act of becoming” – oh I SO love that phrase, and in the rest of sentence he shows us how love constantly changes, how it is a creative act, and how it involves the will, the intelligence and the heart.

Don’t you just love it when a book of several hundred pages, suddenly throws a few words at you and you feel awe, amazement and admiration?

I do.