This episode was proudly made possible by Subaru.
For as long as I can remember, I've
had a soft spot for love and melancholy.
And I think those two things are intimately interrelated, right?
Love and sadness-- they exist in the same space.
There's a reason the filmmaker Cameron
Crowe uses the term happy, sad to describe those moments that
move us, that swell us, that we become engorged with emotions.
And we're also a little bit like,
oh man I'm not so sure if that's making me that happy
or if I'm sad-- I can't really tell.
And Roland Barthes explored this beautifully in his book
There's a couple lines in it that I really love.
"The first thing we love is a scene,
which is seen for the first time.
Curtain parts, and what had never been seen
It's distinct, abrupt, framed.
And this is the line that really gets me.
This idea that when we're struck by love,
it is Immediately already a memory.
The moment is happening, and you're already
mourning the fact that the moment will end.
This intertwining of melancholy, of loss, that is literally
embedded in the experience of rapture
is what's so unique and mesmerizing about love
but also what makes it so tragic.
There's a reason that Roland Bathes
cites love as, "the romantic solution
That our lovers act as stand-ins in a staged, managed,
Where the pilgrim without faith can die and live again.
These death and re-birth simulations
allowing us to finally-- to turn our lovers
It's every pop song, it's every romantic movie
You know the feeling, it moves us to tears.
Because as Camus says, "Life should
be lived to the point of tears."
So, fall in love, or die trying.