One of my favorite authors is John Green because of the way he gets my young adult female mind even though he’s older than me and he’s a dude. But something about the way he writes is captivating and he’s obviously captivated the world with his words. I’ve read all of his books (multiple times duh) and they’re just so good. My personal favorite is Paper Towns which was just made into a big time movie (and it was incredible and it fueled my love for Nat Wolff, which started when he was in the Naked Brothers Band, even more). The way you get to hear Q’s thoughts and his internal journey to find Margo is absolutely powerful and really gives you a sense of what being in love with someone who seems like a mystery is like.
During the middle of the book, there’s a conversation between Q and Radar that I have thought about every single day since reading it years ago:
“Can we call Ben then?”
“No, Ben’s an asshole.”
Radar looked at me sideways. “Of course he is. You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman, and for, like, never asking me about how its going with my girlfriend–but I don’t give a shit, man, because you’re you. My parents have a shit ton of back Santas, but that’s okay. They’re them. I’m too obsessed with a reference Web site to answer my phone sometimes when my friends call, or my girlfriend. That’s okay, too. That’s me. You like me anyway. And I like you. You’re funny, and you’re smart, and you may show up late, but you always show up eventually.”
We get mad at some people for not getting us something for our birthday’s or not calling to say hey. We get mad at some people for being arrogant and we get mad because we think they always come across as rude. We get mad at some people for expecting you to always pay and we get mad because some people have no filter. But that’s what makes those people who they are. I like One Direction too much (not really though) and that probably bothers some people but that’s a part of who I am and it makes me, me. I always call my friends first to see how they’re doing and sometimes I get mad because they never call me first but I shouldn’t because that’s what makes them them. They don’t have to call first. Maybe that’s why we’re friends. They don’t call people first to see how they’re doing but I do so either way we’re still communicating and being friends. We all have little things that make up who we are as people and we are truly unique. If someone is annoying but they’re truly being themselves, then they’re doing exactly what they should be doing even if some people think it’s ridiculous. We all only have a short time on earth and if we’re not being our true selves, then what are we doing?
I mean, it’s actually kind of crazy to sit back and think about the 7 billion people in the world and all the people that came before us and that we are all our own person. At the beginning of Paper Towns, Q says:
“The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle.” […] “But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.”
That was Q’s miracle and that’s what makes him, him. His miracle was getting to love someone so different than him and who was a complete mystery. We all have different miracles but I think it’s a miracle in all of our lives that we get our own unique personalities and we get to be surrounded by other people that are all different but we still still choose to love them, despite the differences.
“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.”
