Been realizing the fragility of life...hope that doesn't sound too pretentious but I guess even the idea of writing a blog is somewhat pretentious - thinking that what one says has import and needs to be read by others...meh, whatevs. I was just thinking how things in life are constantly in flux - locations, jobs, relationships, feelings, and I have that Berkeley staple from one of my classes: the only constant in life is change.
But fragility is different than change. Our lives are fragile and so are our relationships and so are we sometimes. One second you can have a job and the next, nothing. One second you can be without a job and then the next, have a job you really wanted. One moment, you are with someone you think might be for the rest of your life and the next, you are no longer together (and can't US divorce stats stand for that one). But I guess I'm overstating and oversimplifying in relation to time. Yes, things are fragile and change abruptly, but usually they change over a longer period of time. Our feelings, our lives are in a constant shift that accumulates with seconds, moments, days, hours, and not usually in a moment (though some major changes do happen in a mere moment or in just a few)...
But the fragility of relationships, whether they be friendships or romance, are really something interesting. The only really durable relationship is the one with family - that usually can never be severed. But we tie and untie the knots of other relationships like playing with strings. I can't remember ever thinking of this topic before which is weird because I really thought I overthought everything in my teenage years but apparently not this topic. It's also weird that some relationships are so fragile and others so durable - and it's not usually the ones we predict or think will end up the way they do.
I have so many ideas in my head, not my own usually, but ones from books and fiction novels and popular culture, and it's hard to synthesize them or to extract what I don't really need. But some ideas of Buddhism stay with me (and I hope they always do), about how wanting and desire lead to pain, and how if we want something that we don't have now then that is pain and the way to free ourselves is to not want. But in a relationship, so many times we want a certain thing or we want to control a certain thing and that also leads to pain. I'm thinking now of my friends that I see. I try not to think too much of myself here as putting myself as example number one wouldn't really help as I don't think I can really view myself accurately and objectively. But looking at the world and others is still hard for me to see even somewhat objectively but I guess it's better than looking at myself. I just see that we as people want to have things a certain way or want things to be as we see them and that shows me just how fragile we are and how that wanting does lead us to pain. But to not want is also something that seems nearly impossible. I believe there is beauty in our fragility. In our strength, there is much to admire and much beauty, yes, but in our fragility there is also beauty and something to admire. There is also much ugliness in our strength and in our fragility. When we are too strong, we hurt others without recognizing it and when we are fragile we often do things that hurt ourselves. But, of course, life is a mix of all these things and it's not one picture but a continuous mural that I think I will never see the end of.
It's just a new thought, a kind of odd one, for me. The fragility of people is easy to see. The fragility of relationships, even when they seem to be or have been, the most strong, that's a new thought for me. It makes me appreciate the relationships that have lasted and the ones I have seen endure. It makes me understand that I can't really underestimate the importance of connection and how it affects us. But it also makes me see that I should continue to move with how the tide is turning (to turn a metaphor) and to understand that fragility is an important aspect of life and its many facets. There is fragility, durability, growth, and so much more that I can only really glimpse at and try to understand. I should try to appreciate them all and I can even hope that fragility will become durability sometimes and accept the moments given with a better view to the future.
