Adapted from a chapter of a philosophy non-fiction book i’m currently writing and welcome thoughts
‘L’erranceE’, Lookace Bamber, 2014
There is an ancient tension between the craving for infinity and diversity, and permanence and novelty. This dichotomy, at once abstract and visceral, shapes not only the rhythm of our lives but also the architecture of our desires. Infinity, in mathematics, is often depicted as a circle — a perfect, seamless line with neither beginning nor end. A form without rupture, that hints at a permanence our own lives can never quite match. There is a promise of constancy, something beyond the fragile transience that marks our days. We are drawn to it because it seems to transcend the mutability of nature, and resists the tides of time. But it doesn’t exist in natural life, and it doesn’t exist in human affairs. For we are creatures who, while aching for the eternal, demand change even more fiercely. The dream of an unbroken bond can turn claustrophobic; and we will always reach for something — anything — different.
And so we find ourselves caught in the interplay of two paradoxes, each an opposite and yet somehow complementary need. In biology, this is essential: we require diversity to nourish our bodies, and continuity to ground us with the warmth of routine. The push and pull between these forces are needed for survival. But when it comes to human relationships, this dynamic can become perilous, insidious and destructive. In love, we desire the kind of permanence that echoes through the devotion of Greek myths, and the undying passion memorialised in art and poetry. But reality betrays this ideal with sadistic passion, turning the very thing we thought we wanted — stability, permanence — stifling over time.
Perhaps this is due to a third need: for tragedy — the bittersweet beauty of loss. We pine for love to endure, yes, but there is something haunting, unforgettable, in love that dies. The tales that touch us most deeply are those tinged with grief; a lost love that leaves a piercing, unreachable infatuation. There is something sacred, almost reverent, in the pain of an incomplete story. And so, unconsciously, we often enact such tragedies in our own lives, choosing turmoil over tranquillity, as if to prove the depth of our feelings through the weight of our suffering.
Such sadistic need for pain and tragedy stems from a deeper existential root — existence precedes essence. Man is first born without inherent meaning or purpose, till they wills themself into being. In this process, man is both the creator and the creation, simultaneously shaping their identity and evaluating it. Viewed subjectively, we often justify our actions by the intensity of our experience, disregarding conventional morality. For instance, a man who cheats on his lover might see his betrayal as an act of personal liberation, valuing the subjective ecstasy of freedom over the objective duty of fidelity.
But man also possesses an objective lens, through which they judges their actions against external principles. This constant oscillation — between subjective desire and objective self-assessment — drives an ongoing process of reinvention. Shaping ourselves and creating meaning, through the perpetual cycle of gaining and losing, building and breaking. In this light, our love for tragedy takes on a utilitarian dimension. Tragedy provides the crucible through which we evaluate the worth of things. The greater the loss, the more profound the pain, and the clearer the value of what was lost. Pain becomes a mirror, reflecting not just the depth of our feelings but the contours of our existence.
So it seems that we live in this ceaseless schism between permanence and novelty, infinity and diversity. Seeking, holding, and letting go; as we sit at a tattered chair of an aged room, gazing into the far green light of permanence through a cracked, frosty window, at mid-winter. I take comfort in knowing that there is a slight, simmering permanence existing in every fleeting moment. Perhaps, permanence is not defined by the passage of time, but by the depth of affection at that singular moment — when we look into the eyes of our beloved, and we feel the weight of another time-worn, transmigrated soul, where all the waiting, yearning, hoping converges into this single boundless now, and you ache, so furiously, for the looming loss of this gaze. At least, there is gratitude in knowing — that for a euphoric moment, you both sit across the room of a fragile eternity, carved out of the cruel flow of time.
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