Essays in Love

Currently I'm reading 'Essays in Love' by popular philosopher Alain de Botton. Some how, it just sits well in my life at the moment. It follows the rise and fall of a relationship.

It could really be any relationship, it's ordinary and mundane. But de Botton captures the essence of that feeling of unique individuality to every relationship and its all consuming nature. He charts its evolution sharply and manages to describe the details that often feel small and insignificant to perfection and make you feel that he has a window into your life and mind. Or maybe that is just me. Either way, I love that engagement one can occasionally feel with a writer. That funny feeling that someone you've never met understands you completely. In those small inane details you can't express. It reminds me of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera. It has a good ability to touch you, on a subject you thought no one else knew, or could express.

'What is an experience? Something that breaks a polite routine and for a brief period allows us to witness things with the heightened sensitivity afforded to us by novelty, danger, or beauty - and it's on this basis of shared experiences that intimacy is given an oppotunity to grow. Friendships nourished solely by occasional dinners will never have the depth of those forged on a trek or at a univiersity. ' ~ Alain de Botton, Essays in Love.