@AskTheDevil, I've been meaning to ask for a while--
Did you ever read Rabih Alameddine's The Angel of History? It's a book I keep coming back to in moments of despair. In it, a gay poet is haunted by global conflicts that speak to life's capacity for endless suffering (e.g., the US AIDS crisis, and migratory traumas in Lebanon and Egypt). However, he's not alone: Satan and Death are on hand, offering ways through the pain of it all.
Powerful meditation.
#CoSoBooks
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28818930-the-angel-of-history
@MLClark I read the rest of this, this morning.
What a painful book to read, but I'm so glad you recommended it.
I can see why you asked if I had already read it!
Out of curiousity, what do you believe Satan was trying to save Yusuf from, or save him for?
Oh, I'm glad it was a moving read. It's not one I recommend to just anyone!
I tie Satan's lesson here into one found at the end of Nazim Hikmet's "On Living":
You must grieve for this right now
—you have to feel this sorrow now—
for the world must be loved this much
if you’re going to say “I lived”. . .
Death doesn't just want to ease pain; death would annihilate everything - every tendril of love woven into loss & suffering.
Satan here is on the side of the human as a whole.
@MLClark đź–¤