Sunday, October 5, 2014

People

Today's New York Times Magazine has an extended interview with Marilynne Robinson, an author I must confess I've never read. Parts of the interview are just brilliant:

People: Brilliant creatures, who at a very high rate, predictably, are incomprehensible to each other. If what people want is to be formally in society, to have status, to have loving relationships, houseplants that don’t die, the failure rate is phenomenal….Excellent people, well-meaning people, their lives do not yield what they hoped. You know? This doesn’t diminish, at all, the fact that their dignity is intact. But their grief… -- Marilynne Robinson

This notion (fact?) that we are all mutually incomprehensible is at the core of the conflict, and resultant suffering, that pervades our lovely world.