Hi David, I once wrote about the idea you expressed about loving selflessly in an essay that quoted "Famous Blue Raincoat," Leonard Cohen's autobiographical paean to love. In the song, written in the form of a letter to an old friend who became his wife's lover, Cohen forgives the double betrayal, by looking in the mirror after she returns. He sings: “Thank you for the anguish you took away from her eyes / I thought I was there forever / That's why I never tried.”
Very well put, David. I think this is especially true with environmental/climate change writing. Leaving people without hope is exactly the wrong way to go. We all need hope, not false hope, but real hope that will inspire and enable us to do the things needed to fix things, to the extent they can be fixed. (And of course, some things can't be fixed but just survived and learned from.)
I was going through a heartbreak when I wrote this essay, which is, I suppose, obvious in retrospect.
Hi David, I once wrote about the idea you expressed about loving selflessly in an essay that quoted "Famous Blue Raincoat," Leonard Cohen's autobiographical paean to love. In the song, written in the form of a letter to an old friend who became his wife's lover, Cohen forgives the double betrayal, by looking in the mirror after she returns. He sings: “Thank you for the anguish you took away from her eyes / I thought I was there forever / That's why I never tried.”
Very well put, David. I think this is especially true with environmental/climate change writing. Leaving people without hope is exactly the wrong way to go. We all need hope, not false hope, but real hope that will inspire and enable us to do the things needed to fix things, to the extent they can be fixed. (And of course, some things can't be fixed but just survived and learned from.)