Reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which turns out to be, unsurprisingly, very infinite. 1420 pages in the e-book version! This one will take awhile. Meanwhile I'm learning a lot about drugs. And jest.
Here's a passage:
"Attachments are of great seriousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care. What you wish to sing of as tragic love is an attachment not carefully chosen. Die for one person? This is a craziness. Persons change, leave, die, become ill. They leave, lie, go mad, have sickness, betray you, die...A cause outlives you."
...
"What if sometimes there is no choice about what to love? What if the temple comes to Mohammed? What if you just love? without deciding? You just do: you see her and in that instant are lost to sober account-keeping and cannot choose but to love?"
"Then in such a case your temple is self and sentiment. Then in such an instance you are a fanatic of desire, a slave to your individual subjective narrow self's sentiments; a citizen of nothing. You are a citizen of nothing. You are by yourself and alone, kneeling to yourself."
I love that last part. Romeo and Juliet were obviously just selfish. (!)
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