Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Cobwebs: A Midnight Musing

Those of you who have followed this blog for the longest time should be well aware that I update it at the same rate your middle school probably updates its website. But, I am a busy man, and teenagers have to fill their schedules with as much teenager-alia, so this blog ends up being much more seasonal than continuous. Just in another day in the life for the ambitious youth slowly trying to take over the world.

Fortunately, I'm not the only person with this problem, which is why I'm partnering with the not-as-adolescent Tori Hurst (whose musings can be found right here) to keep my writing muscles in shape. After my last post, I challenged her to write a new piece based on one word. After she completed her end of the bargain, she gave me one word in return for me to base my next post around, and I'll send her a new word after this post, and so on.

Today's post is brought to you by the word "spark." However, because it has been weeks since I received that challenge, I have since lost whatever my original vision for this post was. I'll just say that my spark of creativity has returned (hooray!) and my supreme writing powers have returned from that spark.

I've always been curious about the nature of relationships between us as humans. I imagine us as spiders spinning webs between branches, or perhaps as Spidermen pursuing Doctors Octopi in a weirdly graceful way. I'm one of those that believes that every encounter with other humans, no matter how brief, is insignificant. It's when you try and plot out all those encounters on a chart or a map that you really see the complex and typically incomprehensible nature of human interactions. But just as there is a mathematical yet free-from beauty in the web of the spider (as well as the extra benefits of Spiderman's webs that go without saying), there's something in that vast network that keeps on drawing me in, and it has been the driving force behind much of my writing.

The big fear I've always had is the unforgettable possibility of the individual strands of this web of people being severed. We've all felt it: the sudden concern that the friendships we have aren't built to last, and that this web we've formed will cave in as if a nine-year-old boy struck it with a twig. My reflex is always to tell myself "well, if I just say one or two more things, I'll get closure with this person." I like to think that every friendship I have is within my control and it's my duty to maintain or cease each one. Haven't we all been disappointed over our relationships turning out to be more temporary than we hoped? We certainly don't want to be disappointed again, and we just keep on trying to tie that loose end, to get that sacred closure we need.

I'm beginning to think that full closure for which we yearn is just a myth. And I'm not saying that to sound depressingly futile.

Psychologists have proven that humans really hate losing things, a phenomenon known as "loss aversion." Often, as a means of loss aversion, we tend to turn our goals away from taking a risk for more gain. It's why football teams punt on fourth down. We focus too often on keeping what we have, because heaven forbid a slight loss should plunge us into crisis. But come on, we do not control everything in our lives, and our relationships are no exception.

As long as we are loss-aversive by nature, closure will always be on our minds. We will try and keep up every single strand of our webs, and frankly, there is a lot of things we won't accomplish by doing so. Let's not forget that there is no love that can fully match the perfection of Agape, and there is no bond between people that is inherently inseparable. Not all loose ends will be tied, but there is still a lot to be accomplished with those loose ends. Hell, The Big Lebowski leaves countless plot threads unresolved at the end, but what we learn is that they don't need to be resolved and, well... the Dude abides. So remember that if you're trying to keep up some threads, and remember that even the most broken spiderweb can be reconstructed.

Mornin' Hays, signing off.

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