The doctrine: "You are what you love"; choose your temple; fanatic = worshipper at the temple

pivotal · 30 April YDAU

• When: 30 April YDAU (dusk on the outcropping)
• What: Marathe's central creed, delivered against Steeply's romantic-love talk (Tine and Luria). "Fanatic," he notes, comes from the Latin for temple: "worshipper at the temple." All attachments are temples; the supreme, determining human act is to choose one's temple with care. To die for one person is "a craziness" (persons "change, leave, die, become ill… betray you, die"); a nation or a cause outlives you. To love a woman sexually "bends back in on the self, makes you narrow, maybe crazy"; love of nation "enlarges the heart." He warns that a love not carefully chosen leaves you "a citizen of nothing… kneeling to yourself… the slave who believes he is free." The formulation that anchors the arc: "You are what you love… what you would die for without… the thinking twice."