Transatlanticsm
Love is very naïve.
You always fall in love with that certain individual, and promise that you’ll be by their side for the rest of their lives… but then things change. The future ends up entirely different that what you expected. And you never love again.
Until a few years later, where a different individual comes along. And they’re something different. And everything starts to make sense. Once again, you begin to commit, but all it takes is just one change of direction and before you know it, you’re at square one.
Seems analogous to weather. Short-term is relatively easy to predict, as you have a better understanding of the variables in play. But once you begin to look into the future, into the long-term… that’s when predictions fall apart.
There are so many unexpected things that you’d have never imagined. So what makes one think, that against all odds, they can predict the future 50 years down the road?
Maybe that’s what love is all about. Maybe love is full of those hopeful yet irrational thoughts and arguments about what is, what could be, and what will be. And you just never know what you might find the next day, the next week or even, fifty years from now.
And it makes me think of married couples, and wonder, how many times before they met, had they thought that they met the right person. Is it luck? Is it chance? Is it fate?
You’ll never know.
Being in a relationship is like rolling a die. There’s always that chance you’ll roll a 6… but there’s no way to know. Just like relationships. There’s always that chance you’ll marry that person… but there’s no way to know.
It’s weird. You’d think that something that’s been written about, talked about, and so forth, would have been all figured out by now. Maybe not. Maybe it’s for the best? Maybe it’s what makes us who we are?
Because if we didn’t have that irrationality. If we didn’t have those emotions that just don’t seem to make any sense from time to time, would we still be humans?
I don’t think so. I think the moment we start converging to predictable beings, is the moment we start losing our humanity.
Emotions are central to to life’s purpose. If emotions were absent, would we be anything more than just mindless beings, living for the purpose of living? Though our lives would become predictable, they’d lose all meaning.
So is there a correlation between predictability and meaning to life? If life was predictable, there’d be no purpose to it. You’d already know what the outcome to every event would be… so why bother live it?
So does the lack of predictability create meaning in our lives? Seems like a discomforting thought. And does that necessarily imply the existence of free will? I’m not sure.
But whatever love is, it is an adventure first. And just like life, you shouldn’t try to steer against the winds. See what there is in the world, and explore it for yourself. Challenge your perspectives and opinions, and immerse yourself in the cultures unknown to you. Be as open-minded as possible, and be open to change.
But most importantly, never hesitate to take risks. Because, as Mark Twain once said:
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
