Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats - Jan-Philipp Sendker



"Love has so many different faces that our imagination is not prepared to see them all."
"Why does it have to be so difficult?"
“Because we see only what we already know. We project our own capacities—for good as well as evil—onto the other person. Then we acknowledge as love primarily those things that correspond to our own image thereof. We wish to be loved as we ourselves would love. Any other way makes us uncomfortable. We respond with doubt and suspicion. We misinterpret the signs. We do not understand the language. We accuse. We assert that the other person does not love us. But perhaps he merely loves us in some idiosyncratic way that we fail to recognize."

1 comment:

Rabbit said...

Jan-Philipp Sendker’s follow up to his hit of ten years ago, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, requires this approach from its readers. Indeed, if you come at it any other way the sense of loving possibility, optimism and joy that is its central message is likely to get clouded out.