I think I'm fascinated by the power of religion in our culture. Like a lot of secular, liberal people, I ignored it for a long time. Lately, of course, just from a political perspective, it's impossible to ignore.
He made me think of all the books I hadn't read, and all the ones I'd read but hadn't fully understood.
From a distance, it makes perfect sense that the people and the things you think will save you are the very ones that have the power to disappoint you most bitterly, but up close it can hit you as a bewildering surprise.
When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.
Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.