Creativity is beautiful. Creativity is the heart singing. Creativity is our soul’s way of reminding our brains to live, fully, completely and in this moment.
In The Fault in Our Stars, John Green has captured the essence of creativity. It is said that the book is the biggest tear-jerker of this generation. I disagree. The book is only sad it you view it from a literal perspective. This book was not meant to be read literally. Every aspect of Green’s creative work is a metaphor. As with any metaphor, there is wide latitude for the reader to take from the book what the reader wants to see. Here is my view:
The Fault in Our Stars is really about living. It is about challenging the conventional. It is about having the courage to let your heart lead. It is about refusing to let life and society label us and define our existence– like they’ve labeled eggs a “breakfast food”. The Fault in Our Stars is about being free, truly free, to love. As Green shows us, when we love we find an infinity. He teaches us that when we shed the pre-destined, pre-determined roles of this Earth, we find that we’re left with a series of infinities. Each moment we have, when lived in love, is forever. Life is but a series of infinities, some smaller and some larger, but none more infinite than the other. The only true sadness is life is when we die without really living.
I found The Fault in Our Stars to be a well written, heart-warming tale of the painful process of breaking down everything we thought to be true, only to find that love remains. It is an inspiration that our breakthrough does not have to come through pain (after all, does the existence of broccoli affect, at all, the taste of chocolate?). It is a wonderfully romantic story of the human condition of man and the soul of man. It is a reminder that we can all choose to live in love, no matter our relationship status. For in the end, there is only infinite love. I can say, without hesitation, that I like the view Green’s metaphors gave me. I’d love to hear what you saw.
Favorite quotes from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green:
“As he read, I fell in love …. the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
“Grief does not change you … It reveals you”
“I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”
“You are so busy being YOU that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.”
“She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her .. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world .. but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers. “