- Why aren't you talking?
- The conversation isn't interesting to me.
- But you're sitting here.
- Can't I sit here on this terrace and look up at the sky?
- Why isn't the conversation interesting?
- You don't want to know.
- Yes I do.
- I don't have time for this kind of talk.
- What kind?
- One of you shouting at girls as they pass, "I love you, Miss Black Pants, I love you, Miss White Pants." Another going into detail about how good he is at making money. Nothing terrible, but still, nothing here to tell anyone human beings have lived for thousands of years trying to understand life and make it better.
- Just relax.
- I was trying to. Talking with people who aren't going anywhere makes me feel hopeless.
- You shouldn't talk that way.
- Why not?
- You should speak with love.
- I don't love these guys.
- Sure you do. I love you, I love all these guys at the table.
- You love me?
- Yes. Like I love my parents, like I love my girlfriend. It means I show my respect.
- Love is respect? You think that's what love is?
- Yes. You don't think I know what love is?
- What does your respect for me, your girlfriend, your parents, all these guys around the table drinking beer have in common? Describe it for me.
- Love is chemicals in the brain.
- Again! Really too much. When you say that emotion is the same as what is happening in the body, you are saying there is no difference between a good and bad meal, and between love and not loving. One thing is as simple as the other.
- Yes. You don't agree?
- Of course not.
- According to you, what's the difference?
- When you satisfy hunger, you've moved along a path from any point on which you can look forward and behind. When you fall in love, there is a complete change in how you see the world. When you don't love, you can't easily imagine or remember what it is like to love, and when you love, you can't understand how it was you ever let yourself stop loving. There's a jump, a shift from two incompatible relations to the world, one better, one worse. Even if that shift were caused by change in the body, linking the effect to the cause does not at all explain that effect, which is of a totally different nature than the cause. To do so makes you stupid. Eliminates distinctions. Makes you think you love when you don't.
- This conversation is going no where. I'll stop it here.
- Of course.
