A Severe Mercy

Reason #1998 I love being a teacher: I get to read books on my spring break that I have been wanting to read for years :)

This little part is from A Severe Mercy - if you haven't read it - do it. Guys too. You'll love it.

On emotions...
He had been one to despise emotions: girls were emotional, girls were weak, emotions-tears-were weakness. But this morning he was thinking tha being a great brain in a tower, nothing but a brain, wouldn't be that much fun. No excitement, no dog to love, no joy in the blue sky-no feelings at all. But feelings-feelings are emotions! He was suddenly overwhelmed by the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But, then-this was awful!-maybe girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering! He checked himself: showing one's emotions was not the thing: having them was. Still he was dizzy with the revelation. What is beauty that something that is responded to with emotion? Courage, at least partly, is emotional. All the splendour of life. But if the best of life is, in fact, emotional, then one wanted the highest, purest emotions: and that meant joy. Joy was the highest. How did one find joy? In books it seemed to be found in love - a great love...
But in the books again, great joy through love seemed to always go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain - if indeed, they went together. If there were a choice-and he suspected there was-a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and depths.

I just can't help but think that reading this is not coincidental with what's happening in my life and in some of my friends lives right now. I choose the heights and depths, but what a heavy and scary as crap choice.