Andrew Garfield: the longing to connect, the longing to love, the longing to risk
I wasn’t expecting to write another post about the Modern Love podcast so soon after the last one that featured Gillian Anderson.
On October 9, Andrew Garfield was on the show to read Learning to Measure Time in Love and Loss, an essay by Chris Huntington from 2013. Halfway through, he broke down in tears which led to a discussion between him and Anna reflecting on love, loss and longing for life.
It was a very vulnerable and moving moment, and these words by him really stayed with me.
…it’s the sense and knowing and the sorrow of knowing that you will only be able to live your own life. You won’t be able to have all of the experiences you want, that I won’t be able to read all the books in the library, see all the films in the cinema, know all the people on Earth, visit all the countries, know all of history, all of time. There’s a kind of an imprisonment in the life that you have, realizing you’re trapped to a certain amount of experience as you’re alive.
This is why art is so important. It can get us to places that we can’t get to any other way.
I think what’s hitting me… I don’t know. It’s the preciousness, as we’ve been talking about, and it’s the longing for more.
It’s like we all pass with so much more to know with so much more longing.
I don’t know. I don’t know why it’s affecting me so deeply. But I just I feel this man’s writing and it feels like — for all of us, it feels like he’s tapping into something so universal. A longing to be here.
I’m sad at losing anyone. I’m sad at losing anything. I’m sad at the transience of certain relationships in my life. I’m sad at losing my mother, of course. I’m sad at the idea of losing my father, of not being there when my nephews are my age or older.
I’m sad at the concept of not having children of my own. But the sadness is longing. It’s true longing, and there’s no shame in it. And I think…I can feel myself right now putting the modern conditioning taboo on this very, very pure feeling I’m having and expressing with you. And I find that sad.
…I think it’s so easy now to feel hopeless in this current state of the world. Being alive right now, it can feel quite hopeless. And we can feel quite numb, we can feel quite disconnected and isolated. But — I don’t know. I feel like the feeling, the longing, lives in all of us, the longing to connect, the longing to love, the longing to risk…
You can listen to audio version of the complete episode below, or listen to it on the podcast app you subscribe to.