And I'm off! Or nearly. Just as I have fully reconciled myself with New York, I find that I am not too cynical after all to follow love to, well, bleaker parts of this earth. I'm sorry Oregon; you are not bleak, just boring. Beautiful though, easy, quiet, clean, and temporary.
What I am desperately trying to figure out is how temporary this love is. Or love at all. "Everlasting love" can only exist if you believe in infinity, which you have to, because not-infinity cannot exist, but that makes it no easier to comprehend infinity, in time or space, BOTH of which must Be!
I'm reading Anna Karenina now, which for all its length is flying by, and I've realized that I must have been Levin in a past life. Tolstoy writes:
"I cannot live without knowing what I am and why I'm here. And I cannot find that out; therefore I cannot live, Levin said to himself.
In time that is infinite, in matter that is infinite, in space that is infinite, an organic cell is formed; this cell maintains itself for a while then bursts, and that cell is-myself.
This was an agonizing falsehood, but it was the sole, ultimate result of the millennial labors of human thought in this direction...
But it was not only a falsehood, it was a cruel mockery on the part of some evil power, a power that was repugnant, and that it was impossible to submit to.
You had to free yourself from this power. And every man had the means of escape in his hands. You had to put an end to this dependence on evil. And there was one means - death.
And Levin, a happy, healthy family man, was so close to suicide a number of times that he hid a rope, on order not to hang himself, and walked about without a gun for fear of shooting himself.
But he did not shoot himself, and did not hang himself; he went on living."
Anyone who's thought much about these impossibilities has probably had that same feeling. The permanence of love is easier in some ways because its impossibility makes sense, unlike the impossibility of infinity, which makes no more sense than infinity. But on the other hand, the sensible impossibility of the infinity of love is, while comfortingly logical, still disappointing.
What I am desperately trying to figure out is how temporary this love is. Or love at all. "Everlasting love" can only exist if you believe in infinity, which you have to, because not-infinity cannot exist, but that makes it no easier to comprehend infinity, in time or space, BOTH of which must Be!
I'm reading Anna Karenina now, which for all its length is flying by, and I've realized that I must have been Levin in a past life. Tolstoy writes:
"I cannot live without knowing what I am and why I'm here. And I cannot find that out; therefore I cannot live, Levin said to himself.
In time that is infinite, in matter that is infinite, in space that is infinite, an organic cell is formed; this cell maintains itself for a while then bursts, and that cell is-myself.
This was an agonizing falsehood, but it was the sole, ultimate result of the millennial labors of human thought in this direction...
But it was not only a falsehood, it was a cruel mockery on the part of some evil power, a power that was repugnant, and that it was impossible to submit to.
You had to free yourself from this power. And every man had the means of escape in his hands. You had to put an end to this dependence on evil. And there was one means - death.
And Levin, a happy, healthy family man, was so close to suicide a number of times that he hid a rope, on order not to hang himself, and walked about without a gun for fear of shooting himself.
But he did not shoot himself, and did not hang himself; he went on living."
Anyone who's thought much about these impossibilities has probably had that same feeling. The permanence of love is easier in some ways because its impossibility makes sense, unlike the impossibility of infinity, which makes no more sense than infinity. But on the other hand, the sensible impossibility of the infinity of love is, while comfortingly logical, still disappointing.
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I just moved across the country>and while it wasn't solely for love, I'm hoping it'll end up that way