Loved deeply, not widely

"People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad... It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism?... The real heroes anyway aren't the ones doing things; the real heroes are the people noticing things, paying attention." (Augustus Waters -  The Fault in our Stars  John Green, 2012)

You should read The Fault in Our Stars. It’s a beautiful book with a lot to say on identity and significance. (And love and cancer and how to be outrageously charming, but yes....)

Significance is the topic of the first exchange that Hazel and Augustus have in a Cancer Support group. He says he fears oblivion; she counters that the whole world will eventually blow up, so he should get used to the idea that no-one will remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone him. 'And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you,' she says, 'I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that's what everyone else does.'

Augustus longs to do something epic with his life, to leave a mark. Hazel is the complete opposite – she is terrified of the ‘marks’ that she knows she will leave when she dies – the broken lives of her family and anyone she allows to love her.

With characteristic flamboyance Augustus refuses to buy the ‘Don’t love me because you will only get hurt’ argument. He declares: ‘You trying to keep your distance from me in no way lessens my affection for you. All efforts to save me from you will fail.' What’s interesting about their relationship is that they both challenge each other’s view of life in a way that is deeply painful to each of them. Augustus gets Hazel to accept that loving her is worth it despite the pain and along the way she convinces him that he doesn’t need to be known and admired by the whole world – that he can be loved by her and that that is enough (“Loved deeply, not widely.”)

Understandably, neither of them are happy with how their lives turn out. (“I want more numbers than I’m likely to get…”) But the novel is a real celebration of love, and of our lives having significance because of the people in our lives who love us – not because of any other, ultimately much more self-orientated criteria.

It’s a challenge to me to open my eyes and recognise that I have been loved deeply. And that that is enough. In fact, that's what life is supposed to be about. Somehow we distort our lives when we evaluate them based solely on what we want. We have been loved into existence, and so there is a sense in which we* can say:

"You gave me forever within the numbered days, and I am grateful."


*(whether we have an Augustus Waters sized love interest or not... )




(For anyone who's read it, this song does a pretty good job of capturing the flavour of the novel:
... It references Amsterdam and Snow Patrol and everything:)




Comments

  1. beautiful post, hun. thanks for sharing! x

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  2. Totally agree. 'Loved into existence' - gorgeous. And it's already mine, instead of fixating on what I want. Thanks

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