They may not understand much because they're in a completely different phase of their lives but parents do know the simple truths of life. As a kid my parents used to tell me to cherish my family, because they are the only ones in the world that are going to be there for me. Other family would say that too, at the annual family gathering where everyone is there for once, they would emphasize how great this family is and how lucky we all are to be part of it. At the time I thought that was a little exaggerated, I had good friends, I'm sure they would want to help if I really needed it. And it's also that the relation between family and friends changes over the time, many people grow up feeling closer to their friends than they do to family. To the extent that some portion of young adults barely keep in touch with family while they spend lots of time with friends. I didn't quite believe that prophecy at the time but I wonder how many more times they are going to prove me wrong.

As a child, I remember getting really excited about things. Vacations, weekends, Christmas, my birthday, presents, toys, people visiting etc. But as life goes, sometimes you're in for a big disappointment. I suppose as disappointment accumulated that strain was taking its toll and at some point a mental reaction occured. As a child you learn to not get your hopes up, that way you won't be disappointed. That's really a very valuable lesson and if you happen to forget it, soon enough life will remind you of it. At the extreme level, you expect nothing, I suppose I have never felt that. But as far as getting excited about stuff goes, it's practically unknown to me. Since I learnt that lesson properly in childhood, I never get really excited about anything anymore. It's not worth it. Because too often what matters most doesn't work out. So the result is a life of indifference. Days go by but there is little purpose to it. Boredom is being dealt with every day.

A closely related matter is that of trust. As a kid when you get attacked by peers, you learn to defend yourself. Some people fight back physically. Some find a way to bond with the perpetrators so that the situation resolves itself but it takes a bit of self confidence to approach the matter in that way. Finally some do what I did, they zip up, shut down and never let anything slip that could potentially be abused. You go to class with a bunch of people but they don't know you at all, a couple of years later you see them on the street and they don't even remember you. It is amazing how with little effort you can keep in touch casually without ever discussing anything more important than the weather. So that makes you feel empty then, because there's nothing genuine about talking to these people, it's politeness and sometimes necessity, it's not intent. So once the threat decreases, you think to yourself I should try and give a little of myself because this is meaningless. But it takes a lot after all those years to be more open and show people who you are because you're so used to holding back that it's become a second nature. Little by little, you learn to do it and that allows you to get in touch with people that really seem worth the effort. It's such a liberating feeling to trust at least a few of chosen people and not have to hold back all the time. But then the lesson of childhood comes up again. You may just think that finally you know someone who really cares, after all they're willing to spend that much time with you, this could be something special. But then you make the cardinal mistake of getting your hopes up. And you forget what your parents taught you. A person filled with optimism does not think rationally, judgement is clouded by the desire to get whatever it is that you want. And so sooner or later you're in for a big disappointment.

If I could give up all the other times I've proved my parents wrong and trade it for being right on this one, I would.

Imagine you're driving a car.. you stop at a red light and another car pulls up alongside you. Now you're drag racing, both drivers are impatiently waiting for that green light. Now, of course drag racing makes no sense unless the cars are comparable in performance, otherwise it would be a blowout. So there you have it, two different cars, but similar in performance, waiting to start the race. Finally comes the green light, both cars speed out burning rubber. It's neck a neck in the race, both drivers shifting gears to reach that top speed.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is where we extricate ourselves from this very dangerous and very illegal practice of drag racing. Now let x go from zero to infinity as we imagine a straight road of infinite length. The two cars are both going at top speed and their speed is the same. Now imagine that we tie a piece of string, attached to the mirror of one car, going toward the other and fastened there around the mirror once again. These two cars are now bound by a thin piece of string, they are tied together.

If you've seen the title, you've no doubt guessed that the human relationship is represented by the piece of string. The two persons involved are both quite solid, consistent individuals who are set in their ways and appreciate that a systematic approach to a relationship is what will earn you success. But that also mirrors their attitude in other aspects of life, people are mostly static, they don't change much over time, even if they do change sometimes, those changes are then carried over for long periods of time. Thus the potential which exists in trying to match up two people who share enough common ground to make a relationship meaningful is quite significant. But once this relationship is established, it will go on to suffer from a plethora of unforeseen problems which prove extensively difficult to get around.

Let's head back to the drag race. If you can imagine two cars racing, their only incentive being who will cross the finish line first, as they are in fact racing along an infinitely long track, you can imagine that their respective paths will be identical. There is a piece of string holding them together but if either car was to make the slightest turn outwards, that string would snap immediately. So if people grow apart, find out that they no longer share enough common ground for a meaningful relationship, it will be in jeopardy. But that's rather the unlikely scenario. Much more likely it is that the two cars are in fact not identical, one may accelerate faster than the other. Perhaps one is aerodynamic and subject to little air resistance, while the other is bulky in shape, causing the mirror holding the string to shake feverishly. Perhaps one has exceptional suspension while the other jumps at every bump in the road. It is the sum of all these specifics that makes the string dance in the wind with a very great risk of snapping.

It is the sum of all these specifics that makes a relationship a highly volatile compound. While the persons involved are stable, static entities, the bond between them is not unlike the flame in your fireplace, it has no defined state because the sum of all possible states is infinite. And because no two people are equal, it will never be stable. It will always be affected by 3 factors listed in order of likelyhood: (1) the people don't match at the required level of precision, (2) the environment in which the relationship exists is highly dynamic and prone to affect it negatively and (3) the people grow apart/change.

Is it then logically correct to conclude that the human relationship is an atrificial construct, an ill coneived conception at best, a fata morgana? Do we not all strive for highly robust and functional relationships? Who is content with 25%? Ah, but herein lies the obstacle. We may all strive for perfection, but we will never have it. No matter how much one person may want to achieve these lofty goals, the result is entirely dependent on both individuals, both of whom have different philosophies, different values, different approaches, different minds.

Is it then inevitable that in the course of this race toward infinity one of the drivers will fall asleep and end up in a ditch, perhaps crashing the other car in the process? If not, what is the likelyhood of both making it? 1%? 1.5%? Are we kidding ourselves to begin with?

Here's the essence of it.. even if you think you have a strong relationship, you will never know that until it is truly tested. Here's the pitfall.. at times it seems as if the string had been replaced by a thick, solid steel beam welded right into the chassis of both cars. But the steel beam is not real. It is there because we want to imagine that it is. But taking a closer look, there is nothing more than a string in its place. And even though the beam doesn't undergo the shocks that the string would, it does instead accumulate that energy over time, to the point when it has to be released. So if we rely on a beam holding the cars together instead of a string, it is only pushing back the inevitable, sooner or later there will be a release of energy strong enough to snap the beam in half just like the string could snap at any time.

During an hour long visit to my least favorite hangout last week, the dental chair, it occured to me that the visit seemed interminable. I felt what I always feel at the dentist, an almost constant fear of pain. The situation is pretty unique, being in that position there is little to be done for relief, I can't really move much, I can jerk my head a little but that's pretty much it. It should be said that dentail pain is probably my least favorite kind of pain altogether. Headaches can be really bad on occasion and they're exhausting but rarely do they hit me with such a force and unpredictability as dental pain does. And the reason why dental pain is worse is that it's so unpredictable. With most kinds of pain, I can tell in advance what situation will cause what magnitude (and in most cases what kind) of pain. If someone were to hit me with a baseball bat, I know in advance what to expect. With dental pain it's completely different, I never know what's coming and there are times when I get struck out of the clear blue sky.

So reflecting on this issue, little by little it dawned on me that it's not so much the pain that is the subject of the fear felt so clearly. It's the fear of being surprised by pain that stirs the pot really well. I really hate sitting in that dental chair and not because I'm in much pain (little or none most likely) but I do feel the constant threat of pain to surface at any time at all. It's not knowing what might happen that is to be accounted for the significant mental strain of this situation, not actually feeling pain. And let's face it, most times in life pain isn't so bad, very rarely do (I think) most people feel much pain for long periods of time. Once the pain comes, you know what it's like, often we can cope with it. But fearing pain is a big problem, not knowing what to expect, that causes serious stress. So it's the fear of surprise that is the real issue here..

I don't think many people give much thought to walking, it's such a simple, straightforward activity that there's not much to it, on the surface at least. Yeah, that's until you encounter people with poor walking etiquette. They come in all shapes and forms. Most distinct are those who walk too fast or too slow for you to keep up. Somehow they are oblivious to the fact that different people may enjoy different speeds of walking. It's mostly the fast walkers who do this, if they looked to the side for a minute they would see you taking giant strides trying not to fall behind. But even if they look, it's one of those disapproving looks, could you pick up the pace a little bit you think? The fast walkers are easily identifiable, they always have a purpose to their walking. These aren't the people who go window shopping, no they keep their eyes fixed on their destination. No change of course being made here. Time is money.

On the other side of the equation you have the slow walkers. And this isn't about physical ability or endurance, these people just refuse to speed up no matter what the situation is. It's like going faster would conflict with their religious beliefs, it's not being done. And sometimes you need to pick it up a little, when you have to get somewhere on time. These people never worry about getting anywhere on time. Whatever happens happens. 8 or 8.30, what's the difference anyway? And they are so attached to this notion of never doing anything quicker than they normally do at their casual pace that it's downright hard to shake them. Only a serious threat of missing out on something, or better yet facing a penalty for being late, will sway them from their comfortable path.

Too fast or too slow, that's fairly obvious all things considered. But that's not all, there are certain variations of these trends. For instance, there are people who tell you they can't keep up with you. But instead of stopping or slowing down, like any rational person would expect, they walk at the same speed you do, only 2m behind you to prove their point. Not surprisingly, this doesn't work cause if you can walk at my pace, walking behind me is just a question of displacement, not velocity.

More annoying yet are people who refuse to align with you for any reason at all. If you're walking for more than 30 minutes, inevitably at some point one person will stop for some reason. The excuses are many, tying shoelaces, looking at something you pass by the road etc. Now what would good etiquette entail? Nothing more than slowing down or better yet waiting for that person. It's not rocket science after all. But some people never do that, if you stop you have to race back to catch up with them. And even if you try to influence them, very suggestively stop when they stop to show them how it's done, they don't care. Yes, I see that but I'm not interested. And these people generally don't care about alignment at all. If you stop and don't catch up with them, they will keep walking. Similarly, if they stop and you don't wait, they don't catch up either, just carry on at their own pace.

That is a strange phenomenon. If you're supposed to walk with someone and they have to stop for something, you keep walking and they're too stubborn to catch up with you, then you just end up walking at the same pace several meters apart. Apparently, some people don't see anything wrong with that. And it's too embarrassing to have to point that out, it's just walking after all.

I was at the supermarket the other day and I noticed they started selling medications right at the check out counter now. Which is funny, because that's also where the tobacco is being held. See, you can't buy tobacco products if you're underage, so they keep them in a shelf right above where the sales clerk sits when you check out. And the new thing is that they made room on the far side of the shelves for some pharmaceutical products. Aspirine, paracet, vitamins. And call me crazy but I think I saw cough medicine in that rack as well. Now this state of events could lead you to a number of conclusions...

1. These medications are now also sold exclusively to people of age. So if you got a headache and you go to the store but you don't have your id handy, no can do.

2. Someone decided it's time to heal the smokers. Well smoking has too many negative side effects, among others you have that nasty cough. Some Einstein decided it would be a good idea to get the smokers back on their feet quicker so they could come by the store to get more cigarettes. See how it goes full circle? First you get the poison, you consume that, then you come back for the medicine. And while you're there, why not just load up on the poison as well? So handy when it's all in one place!

And it's probably the tobacco companies that did it, they are now pushing tobacco remedies along with their tobacco. And this should make life all the more convenient for these low scale suicide bombers, now they can get the complete makeover all in one place. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the profit from the drugs is higer than it from the tobacco. But if they cut the tobacco, who's gonna buy the medicine?