"But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those lovable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable... The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different from anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else."
- Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live
This quote reminds me of "Lion for Lambs" the Robert Redford movie. Where a college professor tells his student, "the tough thing about adulthood is it starts before you even know it does, when you're already a dozen decidions into it." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1jUjvFP978&feature=channel) But I think love works the same way you don't realize it happened until its already happened for a while.
ReplyDeletethe question becomes: how to break out of the template?
ReplyDeleteYeah, where's the reset button?
ReplyDelete