Thursday, 8 May 2014

Everybody deserves clean water

 “It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, "Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He didn't love me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll---then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.” - Zadie Smith

And the opposite version:

It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear men everywhere saying, "Yeah, she fucked off and left me. She didn't love me. She just couldn't deal with love. She was too fucked up to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a blog, a seemingly rich guy or god forbid, a 'bad' boy who can fuck them like there's no tomorrow---then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something easier to love than us, something easier to develop. Hollywood, Disney and greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. And good sex, yeah, that's pretty high on the list. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Put your real names to your voices. Anonymity is so overrated.

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.