A Bit About Love...

Love. The motivation that can either make or break a person. One mathematician claimed that love or specifically the dynamics surrounding love can be modelled using differential equations, with fairly reasonable predictive powers; the caveat is that there are a few parameters that require ``estimation'', which is scientific-speak for ``we need to guess that one''. Love is also the fascination or abhorrence of both science and social science alike, with people of all fields trying to make sense of this concept that has permeated throughout society.

To me, love is both an enabler and a disabler. It enables quite a few of my senses and intuitive feeling, while at the same time disabling a few of my lesser traits. My sensitivity to my significant other is heightened, while the general closeness I have with people is a little more dull. I feel more than before, and try not to think too hard on matters of the heart, leaving the task of decision-making and understanding to the other parts of my being. As stated by a psychologist before, a person is more than just what he/she thinks---there are additional dimensions that transcend that of rational thought, and it is this transcendence that allowed me to appreciate the ``softer'' sciences. But I digress yet again.

I thought I have loved before, but that turned out to be a sham, a moment's confusion in the grand scheme of life. I think I am in love now, and I regret that I have to push that thought aside, for fear that I am not truly in love but in love with the thought that I am in love. Reaching deep within my very being, I find that there is this warm fuzziness inside each time I think of Ida. That fuzziness comes not from the thought that I am in love---it is something altogether different. The probability of us being together after this year of separation is statistically low, with many anecdotal evidence that the whole long-term thing not haqving good prognosis and all, but in spite of these terrifying historically-backed data, I still feel strong enough to carry on this relationship. I haven't have the foggiest clue where I am getting all these strength from, but I am not really going to question that.

So, love, what is it actually? For sure I know what it isn't: it isn't lust, it isn't about calling each other every single day, it is not even about caring about each other more than anyone else in the world. What love is is something rather nebulous to define; the best working definition that I have now is that love is trust and communication---the trust that one gives another person when one's heart is handed to them, and the communication that allows all the magic to happen.

I think I am a bit too abstract today... must have been all the problem solving on Project Euler...