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I can never say I was happy in the midst of fighting in El Salvador, or Bosnia, or Kosova, but I had a sense of purpose, of calling. And this is a quality war shares with love, for we are, in love, also able to choose fealty and self-sacrifice over security.

Happiness is elusive and protean. And it is sterile when devoid of meaning. But meaning, when it is set in the vast arean of war with its high stakes, its adrenaline-driven rushes, its bold sweeps and drama, is heartless and self-destructive. The initial selflessness of war mirrors that of love, the chief emotion war destroys. And this is what war often looks and feels like, at its inception: love.

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We are tempted to reduce life to a simple search for happiness. Happiness, however, withers if there is no meaning. The other temptation is to disavow the search for happiness in order to be faithful to that which provides meaning. But to live only for meaning—indifferent to all happiness—makes us fanatic, self-righteous, and cold.

- Chris Hedges - War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning

Where love and desire are concerned, there are no adequate examples; and all of our objects must bear the burden of exemplifying and failing what drives our attachment to them.

- Lauren Berlant, Desire/Love (via cartesiannightmare)

The men did not look human after war’s subtraction: no eye, no ear, no nose, no face, no arm, no leg, no gut, no bowel, no bone, no spine, no muscle, no nerve, no breath, no heart, no brain, no faith.

- From Robert Olmstead’s The Coldest Night — one of the David Abrams’ best sentences of the week on The Quivering Pen. (via algonquinbooks)