I'm listening to: Ben Folds Five - Magic

There are so many things I wish I could forget completely, but the experience of psychological pain often leaves an indelible trace - a constant, unwanted reminder that the past doesn't take too kindly to being left behind. There is only one thing I've discovered I can take comfort in.

Each discrete point on any timeline can be considered as a single outcome of a set of interactive forces which shape each situation as the backdrop for any such event. One outcome builds on another, where the preceding influences the following, to culminate in our present state. Keeping in mind that chronology runs on a one directional serial (as opposed to parallel) path in this universe as we know it, our collective past, or who we are today, is like a string of beads.

It's impossible to make lateral comparisons within the same time-frame, since a single string only allows one bead/outcome at any one position along it. On the other hand, the only comparisons we can make are that of outcomes across time, or different beads at different positions along the same string. All other outcomes that could've been simply cease to exist as the movement of time renders them irrelevant to the next set of conditions governing an entirely different (by virtue of the disparity in time) context.

Therefore, since there is no basis for comparison between different outcomes at any one point of time, each outcome is technically the best possible, if a comparative value judgment has to be given; based solely on the fact that there is nothing else to compare it against. Taking this further suggests that each and every of our personal or collective experiences ought to be valued, if not cherished, for what they're worth in themselves; more if we are able to strengthen their meanings by cross-associations with each other or some external entity.

This makes sense, theoretically. If letting reason instead of emotion govern us were only as easy as saying all of this.




you're the magic that holds the sky up from the ground
you're the breath that blows these cool winds 'round