*a story*
She is not sitting next to you, her head resting on your shoulder, through your efforts alone. Yes, she is next to you. You spied her sitting in a big chair and you began assembling the bits and pieces of a relationship. Yes, you made an effort to know her.
What you need to realize, but generally do not, is that when she first smiled at you, and you smiled back, you expended a minuscule bit of the energy bequeathed to you from a long ago far away and still unfolding event. You did not create the energy. You simply used it.
You sort of understand, yet you do not quite truly grasp, the nature of our universe. Few of us do. Few of us can. It is hard to grasp that at the very point you begin building a new thing, gathering far-flung scattered pieces and assembling them into a new structure, forming a new entity from existing bits, that thing begins to crumble. Perhaps you have heard entropy is inevitable. But it is likely you do not realize how directly it applies to you.
You do not dwell on the abstract notion that she can sit next to you for the same reason you can sit next to her with your hand resting lightly on her right thigh. Stardust, energy, and time. Some random infinitely small bits of stardust and some indefinably minuscule bits of energy once assembled into new bits of matter. Time passed; lots of time passed, before one new bit of proto-matter met another new bit of proto-matter.
Perhaps they exchanged proto-matter smiles. Probably not. But they formed a relationship. She-quark and he-quark formed a new hadron. Energy was involved. Energy and time, indescribable time, elapsed. The universe contributed unfathomable events. One result of that series of improbable but inevitable events led directly to her. And to you.
Stardust, energy, and time led to you. Stardust coalesced, energy flowed, time passed. Eons of time passed. Many things happened before you could be. Before she could be. And then more time passed, but now it was an extremely small amount on the scale of the universe.
And one day, at a minuscule pinpoint speck of the universe’s existence, she and you began to form a new couple.
On that one day, on that fine sunny morning, you spied her slumped deep into a big soft deep brown leather chair, contemplating the cup of coffee she grasped in her right hand. Maybe she was not really contemplating the cup of coffee, but her eyes sure seemed to be fixed on it.
Her attention to the world outside of her chair and her cup seemed undisturbed by the comings and goings of other coffee consumers. She was unperturbed until you sat on a stool at the high table in front of the window. Perhaps if you had not dropped your keys as you sat at the high table her head would not be resting on your shoulder right now.
Certainly if you had not met her look of surprise, her startled response to the sudden metallic shattering of her reverie, with your lopsided sheepish grin of apology at interrupting the contemplation of her cup of coffee, you would not have formed a new couple with her. You would not have begun falling in love with her.
But at the very moment you fell in love with her that love began to decay. Sometimes love’s demise transcends a lifetime. But not without effort. Sometimes love fails quickly, nearly stillborn. Perhaps no amount of effort could sustain it.
Everything is continually falling down. Flying asunder. Coming apart. Relentlessly decaying, dispersing, disintegrating. Flying apart or falling in. Nature will have her way; the universal laws always apply. Can we make them not apply? Only temporarily and locally. Only by expending some of our limited energy.
You dropped your keys. You startled her. You noticed her response. At that moment you began building a relationship. You spent some of your store of energy.
Your grin, your nervous stammered apology, induced her to smile.
– Sit, sit. It is okay. I was just daydreaming.
You were nosy.
– Was it interesting? I hope I did not interrupt an interesting dream. I hate when that happens to me.
She was amused.
– Not particularly. Sort of free-associating. Letting random neurons fire and waiting to see what further thoughts they trigger.
You were intrigued.
– Can I hear about it? I would like to hear about it.
She was skeptical.
– I do not know you. Why would I tell you my dreams?
You were persuasive.
– Say only as much as you might share online. That is public. Say more only if you feel comfortable.
She was convinced.
– Over lunch?
Dreams were the pretext. Lunch was the first step. Man courted woman; woman courted man. Proto-couple began forming.
She told of her daydreams. Then she told more. You cleared your plates. You lingered over coffee long after it grew cold. No further refills were offered.
– They are getting impatient with us. I think they want this table back.
By now, she and you were a nascent couple.
– How about if we continue with a walk. Not to be too cliché, but would you like to take a walk in the park?
Eventually, she grew introspective. She went beyond safe public messages.
– This is the point of living: to be happy, to enjoy yourself. Like I am right now.
You were feisty.
– I am glad you are happy right now. But is that not a rather self-absorbed view? A lot of things make life worth living. Not all of them make you happy.
She was insistent.
– Other things happen during a life. They are not the point of living. They are distractions, diversions, digressions. Side roads and cul-de-sacs off the main road of living.
You were unconvinced.
– What about plants and frogs and, and… well, many other things that we would not necessarily consider happy. What is the point for them?
She was amused.
– To make babies. The point of living is to be fruitful and multiply. And fortunately the process of multiplying the species contains brief points of intense pleasure and happiness.
You were contrary.
– Ok. So for people, and possibly for other sentient emotional creatures, the true point of life is to create further life.
She was appalled.
– Sentient emotional creatures. You sure know how to romanticize things.
You were conciliatory.
– Well, I am thinking on my feet here. It is not as if I spend my time brooding about happiness. Or unhappiness, either. I am not a philosopher or a poet. Just an ordinary ornery guy. The notion just struck me.
She was stubborn.
– People do a lot of things that do not seem to be directly related to happiness. Some people get a lot of satisfaction from their work. Other people enjoy reading, or dancing, or horror movies. And many people expend plenty of time and effort chasing after money so they can get things they think they want. They all want to be happy. They just seek it in different ways.
You were argumentative.
– The pursuit of happiness leads people in many directions. Many of them are futile quests for something that does not exist. Do you think people with lots of stuff are more alive than people who are leading simple lives? Are they happier to be alive?
She was unsure.
– Whoa there. Boy, we have really gone deeply philosophical here. What brought this on?
You were cautious.
– Guess I was following the thread of argument. Maybe I followed it too far and lost it.
She nodded agreement. She was slowing.
– Can we sit? My feet are complaining.
She steered you to a bench on a slope. When you sat near her, you realized you also were a bit tired. You sat in silence, gazing at the park around you. That far-away look appeared on her face once again.
Through a gap in the trees the nuclear-fusion fueled fireball 8.36 light-minutes away was sliding from view. Massive transfers of energy occurred as hydrogen fused with hydrogen. Quarkdom was in upheaval. Photons were flung. Some struck your eyes. Your photon-struck eyes were slowly becoming love-struck as well.
The sky overhead gradually darkened. The ending of your long day was pleasant. Ever so slowly, her position on the bench drew nearer and nearer to yours. For a time your arm rested across the top of the bench. Gradually it crept across her shoulders. Then you heard a loud sigh, and her head came to rest on your shoulder. Your hand slid to her knee, and slowly migrated to her right thigh.
Stars began to appear. First there was a single distant point of light, then another. When you looked again the heavens were full of remote intense nuclear explosions. Out there, way out there, things were forming and things were coming apart.
Things are constantly in the process of coming apart. It is the Second Law. It is inevitable. It takes energy to keep things together.
Over time you will put less energy into your relationship than the universe demands. As a result one day your hand will no longer rest on her right thigh.
mry writes 