Green-induced Mutterings

I'm here to write about a book. And that book is by John Green.

As you might expect, I've entered that state where nothing and everything makes sense, the world is beautiful, and I want to write more-than-words.

The book I just finished is entitled The Fault in Our Stars.

And my face is mirror-slick with tears.

I'm not really going to write about the book. Sorry to mislead you right off the bat. Though, I do suppose, in a roundabout way, I am going to write about the book, because I'm going to write about the way in which the book felt. I'm going to write about the words that John Green wrote, without telling you what those words were, but rather what they became.

I want you (I'm not entirely sure who I'm speaking to yet; maybe my readers, maybe myself) to never think of yourself as under-qualified for anything. Don't excuse yourself with self-imposed labels ("I'm not much of a writer, I'll leave that sort of thing for authors and students of literature and child prodigies"). I know for a fact, an unshakable fact, that no one will leave this earth being the absolute best at anything. But there is beauty in knowing you'll never be the best, because it allows you to do what you can, in a way only you can, without the fear of being subpar. You will never be second-rate if you are wholly you.

This may go in one ear and out the other. You may scoff at me, roll your eyes, jeer. You can even accuse me of falling into the cliche trap I so exhaustively avoid. But the fact remains: Though I am not immediately dying, as were Augustus and Hazel, I am still dying. We all are. And until you realize that, you will continue to die, and forget to live. And live in a way only you can. And love in a way only you can.

Perhaps this book was all the more poignant to me because I now know what it means to love, as Hazel and Augustus knew for a time. I know what it's like when love fuels action, because until love is eternal it is finite. It could be gone at any moment, and what are we left with? Gratitude that we were blessed enough to feel such finite infinity? Or bitter, ruined, resigned to constant self-failure? Unless we live and love as wholly as we can while we still can, it will undoubtedly be the latter.

And there you have it - more highly-emotional, associative, "something more"-induced blather that could not (and should not) be said in such a way by anyone other than me.

Now you (I am certain I am speaking to my reader, here), go read John Green's new novel, The Fault in Our Stars. But wait! I will leave you with one excerpt: "You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices."