I recently had a revelation that nearly ever major tragedy in literature (or plays/movies) is a direct result of lack of, or mis-, information. How many times do we get the omniscient "god" view, only to have the despair of knowing that if this character had only told this other character that one crucial bit of info there could have been a happy ending? THAT, my friends, is the essence of tragedy.
Moral of this story: TALK TO PEOPLE. And be honest.
"Hurt me with the truth, but never comfort me with a lie."
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Which part of fate are we stuck with?
Had a wacky thought last night...
Backstory: I fell in love in 2003 and he was IT. He was the love of my life. Within weeks, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind - we had an uncanny magnetism.... I started having visions of our children... everything at the core of my being was vibrating with this feeling of rightness. And lest anyone immediately write this off as me being totally nuts (I am, but that's different), he absolutely felt the same way - we just knew. We started talking about marriage and our future, and he asked me to move with him when he started grad school that fall. And again, to differentiate from the stereotypical, somewhat frantic and anxious, romeo-and-juliet version of young love, this experience wasn't driven by a feeling of need or desperation - it was calm, and solid, and grounding. It simply was. And we both knew it.
And then, for a variety of reasons - including the onset of a depression I had never before experienced (school and life-path related), and the stress of his own early-grad-school experience, as well as so many other factors we may never fully understand - about 8 months later we broke up.
I've thought through enough material for an entire book (or three) since then, about pretty much every aspect of this experience and relationships and love, but the continuation of the story that is relevant here is that I didn't fully process through a lot of the internal effects and emotional aftermath of that relationship until about a year ago. Nearly a decade later (and only after finally meeting the only other person with whom I've had anything close to that same grounded feeling of absolute rightness, which, consequently, had a more than a few intriguing similarities, including the fact that it also only lasted a short time).
So here's the completely new point-to-ponder that came to me last night, which I am feeling inspired to share here. To be honest, I'm pretty sure I don't believe this is true, in the universal sense of truth, but it's a pretty interesting concept to contemplate...
What if that was how long I was destined to be emotionally involved with him, regardless of what actually happened with our relationship?
In other words, what if it didn't matter if we had stayed together and had an amazingly romantic and loving decade together, because once our predetermined time was up, we would decide to go our separate ways regardless?
In a more universal sense, what if there are aspects of our path/fate that ARE set, and the choices we make only determine the details of our experience within that pre-set framework (i.e. whether our on-the-ground life lines up with that universal feeling of rightness, or not).
I hope y'all have fun with this one. :D
ETA: Related Radiolab episodes suggested by a friend.
Backstory: I fell in love in 2003 and he was IT. He was the love of my life. Within weeks, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind - we had an uncanny magnetism.... I started having visions of our children... everything at the core of my being was vibrating with this feeling of rightness. And lest anyone immediately write this off as me being totally nuts (I am, but that's different), he absolutely felt the same way - we just knew. We started talking about marriage and our future, and he asked me to move with him when he started grad school that fall. And again, to differentiate from the stereotypical, somewhat frantic and anxious, romeo-and-juliet version of young love, this experience wasn't driven by a feeling of need or desperation - it was calm, and solid, and grounding. It simply was. And we both knew it.
And then, for a variety of reasons - including the onset of a depression I had never before experienced (school and life-path related), and the stress of his own early-grad-school experience, as well as so many other factors we may never fully understand - about 8 months later we broke up.
I've thought through enough material for an entire book (or three) since then, about pretty much every aspect of this experience and relationships and love, but the continuation of the story that is relevant here is that I didn't fully process through a lot of the internal effects and emotional aftermath of that relationship until about a year ago. Nearly a decade later (and only after finally meeting the only other person with whom I've had anything close to that same grounded feeling of absolute rightness, which, consequently, had a more than a few intriguing similarities, including the fact that it also only lasted a short time).
So here's the completely new point-to-ponder that came to me last night, which I am feeling inspired to share here. To be honest, I'm pretty sure I don't believe this is true, in the universal sense of truth, but it's a pretty interesting concept to contemplate...
What if that was how long I was destined to be emotionally involved with him, regardless of what actually happened with our relationship?
In other words, what if it didn't matter if we had stayed together and had an amazingly romantic and loving decade together, because once our predetermined time was up, we would decide to go our separate ways regardless?
In a more universal sense, what if there are aspects of our path/fate that ARE set, and the choices we make only determine the details of our experience within that pre-set framework (i.e. whether our on-the-ground life lines up with that universal feeling of rightness, or not).
I hope y'all have fun with this one. :D
ETA: Related Radiolab episodes suggested by a friend.
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