think. In fact, I believe it is better than the alternative.
The second half of this book is also an honest look at the modern world
and everything that is fucked with it. It’s an evaluation done in the hope not of
fixing it, but of coming to love it.
Because we must break out of our cycle of religious conflict. We must
emerge from our ideological cocoons. We must let the Feeling Brain feel, but
deny it the stories of meaning and value that it so desperately craves. We must
stretch beyond our conception of good and evil. We must learn to love what
is.
Amor Fati
It was Meta’s last day in Sils Maria, Switzerland, and she planned to spend as
much of it as she could outdoors.
Friedrich’s favorite walk was around the east bank of Lake Silvaplana,
half a kilometer from town. The lake was a shimmering, crystalline thing this
time of year, wreathed by the mountains on a horizon pulverized by white
peaks. It was on walks around this lake that he and Meta had first bonded four
summers ago. This was how she wanted to spend her last day with him. This
was how she wanted to remember him.
They left shortly after breakfast. The sun was perfect, and the air was
silky. She led, and he hobbled along behind her with his walking stick. They
passed barns and fields of cattle and a small sugar beet farm. Friedrich joked
that the cows would be his most intellectual companions once Meta left. The
two laughed and sang and picked walnuts as they went.
They stopped and ate around noon, beneath a larch tree. It was then that
Meta began to worry. They had come far in their excitement. Much farther
than she had anticipated. And now she could see that Friedrich was
struggling, both physically and mentally, to keep it together.
The walk back was arduous for him. He dragged noticeably now. And the
reality of her leaving the next morning fell over them like an ominous moon,
a pall upon their words.
He had grown grumpy, and achy. The stops were frequent. And he began
muttering to himself.
Not like this, Meta thought. She didn’t want to leave him like this, but she
must.
It was late afternoon by the time they approached the village. The sun was
waning, and the air was now a burden. Friedrich lagged by a good twenty
meters, yet Meta knew the only way to get him all the way home was by not