Gasset's Meditations on Quixote

Don Quixote besides being one of the classic books is also one of my favorites, one of its major themes is fantasy which you all know by now I am fascinated with. Jose Ortega Y Gasset, a Spaniard like Cervantes, wrote what is considered the greatest study on Don Quixote in his book Meditations on Quixote. A book that I am currently reading and I would like to share with you. Here are some quotes from the chapter "to the reader" that seem to me relevant to Dear Stranger:

Things do not interest us because they do not find in us favorable surfaces on which to be reflected, and it is necessary for us to multiply the facets of our mind so that an infinte number of themes may penetrate it.

In a Platonic dialogue this urge to understand is called "the madness of love."

Culture presents us with objects already purified which once possessed a spontaneous and immediate life, and which now, thanks to our reflective process, seem free from space and time, from corruption and caprice. They form, a zone of ideal and abstract life, floating above this personal existence of ours...

Since spirit and logos are nothing but "meaning," connectedness, and unity, all that is individual, immediate, and circumstantial appears to be accidental and meaningless.

All that is recognized today as truth, as perfect beauty, as highly valuable, was once born in the inner spirit of an individual, mixed with his whims and humors.

When shall we open our minds to the conviction that the ultimate reality of the world is neither matter nor spirit, is no definite thing, but a perspective.

I realize it does not have the same potency outside of the context but maybe these snippets will encourage you to read the book.

- AAP
[Filmmaker]