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Another gloriously perfect day with blue skies and continuous warm in this garden village outside of Amsterdam.
Bon Journal
Immortalising the optimal state
Is there a Chinese saying about those who try to have both get neither? You can't have your cake and eat it too?
For those readers who want to be provoked or challenged, here are two questions for your day.
First question:
Is it better to immortalise the optimal state of a relationship between two people (however short it is, as long as it's perceived to be the optimal state) than to run the course of an eventual, disappointing death?
A friend of mine spent many years in a relationship that everyone else thought was doomed to fail. She ran it to the ground, to its bitter end, against my warnings. She said it ended because they had consumed all that was possible. There was nowhere to go after that.
Meanwhile, in unrequited and unanswered love --- there is always that beauty suspended in time, which can be immortalised if both parties know to stop before it gets bad.
The wisdom of "buy low, sell high" of stock markets can be applied here. Buy low and sell just before the peak --- never knowing of course whether it could actually go any higher or plateau into a comfortable existence such as experienced by loving couples who grow together and age until death do they part.
By immortalising the optimal state --- be it a mere one night stand --- or a short, intense period of getting to know each other and revelling in the possibilities of a "living happily ever after" future --- you are left with memories of beautiful moments and aesthetic appreciation for the novelty of fresh, intoxicating and sensual experiences --- but forever the heartache of wondering such a dream could ever be realised. Or indeed, whether it was the optimal state at all.
Second Question:
Which is worse ?
A: To let someone believe there is hope --- never saying one bad word to offend --- but leading the person on, taking up the opportunities that the person could have in another relationship that might lead somewhere.
OR
B: To be brutal and direct by saying words that hurt, rejecting someone outright, and ending a potentially fulfilling relationship - by declaring there's no hope at all?
10 June 2004 Thursday
Related entries & links:
And
this is love
a song by Anne Ku
All out of love
Silly love songs
Yuan fen: unanswered vs unrequited love
Le Bon Journal newsletter, vol 1 issue 2: "Love Like you've never been hurt"
Le Bon Journal ezine, issue 2: "Love is actually all around the world"
Reader reaction:
The Chinese saying is liang tou luo kong (two end drop empty): fall between two stools.
Liang = Two
Tou = Head or end
Luo = Fall
Kong = Empty
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