"Just Right" and Other Impossible Things
Since I was pretty young (relative, of course, to my current youth), I’ve swung back and forth between two extremes in terms of my beliefs about the nature of existence. Call it a hobby, or something akin to one. Both extreme notions can be summarized in simple statements: “everything is temporary,” and “everything is permanent.” The former seems to hold dominance in times when I feel the most ill at ease. It is when I am insecure and afraid and sad that I think to myself that everything fades eventually, and one day it will be me that fades: completely temporary. The latter, as you may infer, predominates when I feel the most consistent joy. When things seem to be going right, when I feel the most supported and loved, I am thrilled to feel as though those moments live on forever, inside of me, etched on some cosmic record somewhere: infinite and permanent. Today, in my Indian Religion and Philosophy class, my professor read from The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.