As I've stated I believe that humans can learn, grow and change. I have to believe that. At the same time I think that there are certain aspects of us that are not only fundamental to our characters, but the more we learn and grow the sharper into focus these things are drawn. I do not see this as bad.
When we're children we see the world with great clarity but at the same time we're forming and so that clarity is clouded and convoluted over the course of years as we experience and try to process as we go. This isn't easy and yet we slam ourselves and others for 'not knowing better' when we are constantly bombarded with contradictory input. And that's only living in one country, exposed to the limited cultural palette there.
We talk about love and relationships all the time, lamenting how we want something or how being part of one particular couple didn't allow for something. But have you ever looked at the arc of a relationship? I mean really tried to look at it over the full course with some dispassion and from both sides? It's so easy to see it as we felt things without allowing for another viewpoint or anything approximating objectivity. We're human, though: that's what we do.
But think about what you've fallen for in someone. Think about what that person fell for in you. Remember that infatuation and chemistry at the beginning, how you couldn't wait to see one another and how there were butterflies and idiot grins when you saw each other every time. Now think about the end and the things that you said to each other just before you split. That rancor. The resentment. Blaming. Hostility. Maybe there were feelings of betrayal. Maybe things just ran their course and the passion died.
There was a lot that happened in the middle. And I'm almost willing to bet there was as much left unsaid on both sides. This is the way things generally play out between two people. We all change but we rarely change in the same ways or at the same rates. And while the change is happening it's almost never the case that there are frank discussions between two people. After all, the feelings are magic at the beginning. Why would we bring things down to the concrete and dust of every day life and spoil whatever's left of the mystique?
So relationships end. Partners go their separate ways. We take some things from those pairings and we leave others. But we are more and more ourselves with each breath we take, with every step into the future. Every setback and triumph, every challenge met or not, helps to define us both to ourselves and to this mish-mash we call society.
I think people who knew me when I was a boy might describe me as shy and sweet. As I grew older some might have called me mellow while others would have gone with intense. Somewhere in my later teens or early adulthood sarcasm, pessimism and cynicism found their way in. Yet, for all that and as I've mentioned previously, I was a romantic. I have always believed in the mystical and transcendent. Even when I've been bitter and self-destructive. Now that I'm a hair's breadth from being universally acknowledged as a hermit, even as I've lost faith in human nature and given up trusting women with love, I'm a romantic. I may no longer throw myself headlong into The Great Unknown or define my existence with the sweeping gestures of earlier days, but I believe more and more that love is about the only thing truly worthwhile humans have brought to the world. Everything elevated in us or because of us has grown out of love, as far as I can tell.
But there are few who would describe me now as who I was 5 or 10 or 25 years ago. Time has worn on me as much as learning and loss have taken their tolls. But I think I am more myself, and more true to those founding (foundling?) characteristics, than ever.
It's a conundrum. A paradox. As mysterious as it is obvious. We are such strange critters, clinging to dreams and beliefs while ignoring reality at every turn. We pine for what we don't have and are oblivious to what's right before us. We confuse luck with accomplishment and deny so many of the reasons we're alive. And we just keep on going.
That's something, ain't it?
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