“The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.”
—
Walter Benjamin (via hqlines)
This is one of my favorite things written by Walter. And it’s one of the most misunderstood ones. In a letter to Brecht, he touches upon this again - and this is shortly before he kills himself when the Nazi presence reached Portbou, at the French–Spanish border (Bataille writes about this). He explains this statement in a simple way: Hope mystifies a person, place, object. Hope can be dangerous and often restricting if clung on to too desperately. And in love, we often cling on to hope before we even begin to know the person of our affection. The idea is to love them by knowing them - discovering them, understanding them - without hope. And the thing is simple: the antonymous reality of hope is not always despair. Sometimes - often - hope is despair itself. Despair taints, mars, hurts. The opposite of hope can be elucidating; it can be acceptance without abject powerlessness; it can be resolve without expectation. And for that, Walter would always point at beginning at one’s own heart. Fortifying it before going anywhere else.
(via king-woman)
