Culver City, December 2008.
Love is to hold a person in the highest possible regard. It is an unstoppable force. Pride is to hold oneself in the highest possible regard. It is an immovable object. That is all good and well, until the first collides with the second.
So the question is: What happens when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Well, in philoshopical terms, this has been addressed as part of the
omnipotence paradox, similar to the question “Can God create a stone so heavy it cannot be lifted, not even by God Himself?” which we of course realize is a a self-contradiction. In physical terms, science fiction author
Isaac Asimov posited the
answer that there would be an “endless transfer of energy.” In practical terms, there would simply be a
very big explosion :).
However, I’m more interested in the question as I initially posed it: What happens when love collides with pride? As far as I’m concerned, the answer is depression.
A wise man (yes he had a white beard and round spectacles — he really did!) once explained it to me like so: Depression is like a mouse trapped in a small room. Its initial reaction is to manically scratch at the walls until it realizes its helplessness, then it curls into a ball and cowers in the corner, refusing all food and water.
For a long time I thought that was the only answer, and continue to believe so. However, the problem lies not in the answer, but in the question itself. Indeed, the answer to the question “What happens when love collides with pride?” is in fact “depression.” But if we take the question back to its origins as an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object, then we realize that it is only hypothetical, for there are no unstoppable forces in the universe and there are no immovable objects. A scientific explanation of why that seems to be the case is beyond the scope of this blog, but the universe would simply be impossible otherwise.
Therefore, any love that is considered unstoppable in the face of pride is not love at all, but obsession. Similarly, any pride that does not yield to the force of love is not pride, but stubbornness. And no one worthy of my love would ever pit it against my pride.
I first asked myself this question in the back seat of a cab taking me from Los Angeles Airport to my apartment in Culver City, December 2008.
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This is the night sky from my balcony.
Sometimes I dream of flying. I’ve had that dream since I was eight. Not every night, but often it comes to me when I’m least prepared. I have other dreams as well, but this is the most real and bewildering. When it comes it grabs a hold of me so tight that I sleep for hours and it does not let go until it’s taken me more places than my brain can handle. And then I wake up.
Last time I had the dream was a few weeks ago. Immediately upon waking up, I jotted down some notes and keywords along with the date and time, then promptly fell back into a dreamless sleep. When I awoke, not only had I forgotten the dream, but also the fact that I had taken the notes.
Tonight, completely by accident I found them again, but now I can’t make any sense of them. I know the dream will come again soon. And when it does, I’ll be prepared.
Date: Monday, July 19, 2010 4:48:27 AM GMT+03:00
Important: Yes
Symbols: Bed, Europe, Flying, Model, Piazza
Dream of Flying
- The Spanish (?) family I stayed with
- Mom and Dad and the photo
- The square (M something)
- The geography
- Discovering flight and dealing with ceilings
- The obsessed collector
- The hostel
- Guy on the stairs saying you can’t go back into the room with women
- Carrying lots of stuff
- The model
- The hair salon with layered bunk beds
- Kissing her
- The girls tugging at my legs and the guys discussing the case of the bird
- The sunflower and mean Indians
- Chasing after the dog for the sunflower
- The police and being shot
- Illegal immigrant and homeless camp
- Immigration guy checking on me then discussing film school
- The small TV there
- Mother finding me there
- The other who becomes a bird
- In the square teasing teens then the guy taking one of them and transforming them to an old lady, kid, and dog on the rooftop
- Trains and taxis
- Escaping through the toilet window twice and the girl I did it with the second time
- Learn Japanese books and the family’s offer to hide them for me
- Death sentence
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