I love the world and everything in it
As I sit at a terminal gate, brought upon me by events that most would only consider incredible misfortune, it seems poetic that I found Z.A.T.O. when I did. I've not been much of a romantic thinker this past while, but the main character spends most of her time musing in that sort of way.
Like how Ira appeared before Asya with considerably perfect timing, this story appeared before myself in much an interesting time. Right out the gates, too, it asks you:
Is the universe warm?
Does it love you?
According to Z.A.T.O., of course it does, that's quite possibly the simplest question to answer.
I don't particularly pity myself for the situation I'm in, and, somehow, that's a pretty big part of the story here, too. Should I?
For no particular set of reasons, scientific or spiritual, common or quaint, I've not particularly struggled with "the world" being cold.
Maybe I relate to Asya more than I had initially thought.
Is it all a coincidence? Or is it an act of cosmic direction? Asya, our eyes into this story, spends a lot of time asking this question, and where it's tragically common to see a nihilistic or even pessimistic response in this sort of existentially weighted writing, it's instead optimistic: one part elegant and two parts beautiful.
Unfortunately, I am neither concise nor wise enough to adequately express the grace with which it allows its story to play out, especially without spoiling much of what it offers.
It doesn't ask you to think a certain way, or try to force its ideas upon you, rather lays its themes delicately before you and allows you to take it as you will.
It's a short read, under 5 hours for my reading pace while having stopped occasionally to look up books or other referenced specifics in its dialogues.
I've seen many review it as life-changing or brilliant in its complexity. "Maybe I'm not sensitive enough to the depth of it" I had thought. Then again, it's not that I didn't understand, or so I would like to imagine.
I thought, at first, that I couldn't value it without being lost in it, that anything short of grand and disorienting brilliance meant a failing on my part.
And yet, I just don't feel the need to be bewildered to appreciate the beauty within it.
I get it
and it's lovely.
If anything, I felt almost as if I had never not known it.
Like being happy to see something after far too long, that beauty.
Thank you, Z.A.T.O., for the reminder: I do love the world and everything in it.
And now I can love it a bit more, too.
яебялюблю.