The Odds

Odds: A rate expressing the probability of an event or outcome. According to the odds, love isn't what its supposed to be, marriages don't last a lifetime and goodness hardly defeats evilness. However, we still fall in love, we marry way too much and always try to be good boys and girls. I don't like odds: They make happiness- and everything related to it- seem very distant and almost impossible.

The thing is, nothing's 100% probable. There's always that small percentage that's not enough to make you smile, but its enough to give you hope. So we spend our lives believing that we are part of that small group of special people, those to whom odds don't mean anything because they are beyond them anyways.

Personally I believe, as a pure act of faith, that people are good, love will be what I expect it to be and if I ever marry it will last 'til my dying day. Of course, the chances for any of those things to happen have a tendency to 0 but I, as the rest of the people, prefer to believe that it WILL happen to ME instead of trying to figure out how to live if it didn't occur to happen.

Unfortunately with all the improvements we've made technologically, its becoming harder to live in this fantasy world. I mean, a couple of centuries ago, I couldn't realize that 8 of every 10 marriages were unhappy; I could only see that I had a couple of neighbors that got along horribly and another couple that got along pretty well. So I'd assume that the chances for my marriage to work would be equal as for it not to work. Now I don't have that privilege. I know now- thanks to odds, psychology, sociology and some other great sciences we've created- that for me and someone else to work together acceptably takes so much effort, so much working on ourselves, so much communication and many other genius skills to work on that it's just easier to stay on your own and forget about even getting close to people.

Love isn't either what it used to be. Before, it was this unexplainable feeling that would take over you and made you act crazy and stupid. It was perfectly normal to see someone suicide because she didn't love him, or he married someone else, or just to add a little drama to the plot. Nowadays however, love is not about the passion and the craziness anymore. Now, it's about commitment; itýs about giving, and sharing and forgiving and understanding. Basically, we analyze everything about the other person and if they fit us then and only then we can think about letting our feelings go, and never too much, just the right amount so it doesn't appear shallow and superficial. That's the essence of mature love these days.

I dislike that definition. The way I see it, love- and sex as the purest expression of it- is mainly about taking ourselves out, making ourselves vulnerables. Because only when weýre vulnerable, when we leave our emotions outside, so that anyone can touch them, then we feel alive. It doesn't matter if it's thru joyness or pain. Of course, joyness is preferable, but apparently a little pain from time to time helps us get our feet on the ground and grow up.

Nevertheles, thanks to odds, we're finally starting to see that things are much more different than the way we perceive them or believe they are. We are realizing, not without some resistance, that we have to reinvent our basic notions on life, since the ones that we've had until now have became obsolete. We're learning change is positive and we're starting to challenge ourselves, cross our limits and discover that possibilities go as far as our imagination does. Finally, after all this time, WE are starting to LIVE.
Iana
5:20 pm
Monday 26 sept. 2005