Infinite Possibilities

  Sometimes I wonder if I've chosen the right things for myself in life. I wonder how things could have gone, had I made other decisions, had I changed my mind about anything. My stubborn nature has helped propel my personality into being headstrong and confident. I don't normally think twice about doing something.
  It's only after I've made the decision, after the consequences have played out, only then do I look back and ask myself if I've made the right choice. Perhaps things would have played more smoothly had I changed just one aspect of an outcome, maybe things would have been easier. Then again, maybe things would just be harder. It's difficult to predict what might have happened.
  If you believe in an infinite universe possibility, you'd realize that you've already made every choice available to you. The problem with this idea is in confidence. If we are so sure we would have made the choice we did, is there a possibility that we wouldn't have? Does life experience mean nothing if we have every choice available no matter what we do? Admittedly, free will allows us to make any choice at any time, but with infinite universes, how can we know what we would have done?
  Decisions incredibly out-of-character for ourselves are very, very seldom done, and when they are, it's usually out of duress. How can there be universes existing on the basis that we do unbelievable things that we would normally never do? By extension, have we technically done everything we could possibly do, simply by living where there are infinite possibilities to do so? Are we all murderers because we've murdered in another universe? Are we always the best and worst of ourselves? Who are we, really? What is the "real" universe? And can we one day wake up, not recognizing ourselves, our location, or strange new habits we have, all because we've accidentally "jumped" into a new universe?
  Science, it seems, can be impossible.

Oftentimes

  Oftentimes, humans find that they feel alone in this world. Events may transpire, things may be said, and the person who we once thought was the better half of ourselves leaves forever.
  Oftentimes, we never truly realize how important someone is until they do leave, or worse, we knew the whole time, and must now wear the heavy burden of knowing we will never have the opportunity to right the wrongs between us and them, never be able to change the last words we said; never be able to show them what they meant to us. We can't change time, we can't change biology, and we can't change our hearts.
  Oftentimes, our minds and hearts never leave the ones who left us. Even years can pass, and hearts still feel those same, fresh wounds. Religion helps us little; what good is an afterlife when our soulmate isn't here, now? The only recourse is to overpower the pain, to gain what little space we can between us and the emotion. Alcohol, drugs, violence, crime, gambling, adrenaline. Yet, time and again, these brief periods of peace end, and we're forced to do more to have the same effect. As the crashes become worse and worse, more of our time becomes devoted to escaping the crippling depression the loss of our love has brought down.
  Oftentimes, this unhealthy pattern becomes our downfall. As our escape from reality must keep up with our increased tolerance, now topped off with a desperation to continue escaping. We must now escape several things: our loss, our self-hate, our guilt and shame, and our depression, all balled up into a monster that nobody could ever hope to cope with. So instead, we do the only thing we've learned how to do; we escape. We take more, we do more to run away from it all, to somehow escape ourselves. We don't dare take a moment to ask ourselves what our loved ones would think of us now, we just keep going, keep running from everything. An endless cycle, one that we witness in real-time, as it completely destroys and ruins us.
  Oftentimes, we find ourselves sitting by a cliff, gun in hand, staring at the moon and stars reflecting from the otherwise-black, despairing waters below. The beauty is lost on us. We've lost the ability to care years ago. As we stand to our feet, we catch a glimpse of a new day on the horizon, brightening the world for another 12 hours. We place the gun to our head, our one last hope is the forgiveness of our loved ones. We have forgiven them for leaving us, after all. Perhaps they will forgive us for coming back so soon...

Shower

  In the bright light which shines just above my head, I spend the time washing my hair, scrubbing my body, and thinking deeply, as I'm sure everyone else does. My mind wanders, and I think for a moment about the beauty of the world. How, when it comes down to it, everything is beautiful, even if no one can see it or appreciate it.
  This thought brings me to watch the water fall in front of me. I can't see the individual drops, but my eyes can catch the glint of the light on the water itself, and the overall look of the small, constantly changing lines that my mind captures. Together, it reminds me of television static, and I smile to myself a bit.
  This thought cascades into a new one. Humans have evolved so quickly with technology. Our sciences have advanced faster than anyone could have guessed it would. I imagine how insane our electronics would look to anyone from only a century ago, someone who could very well still be alive today. Imagine if they had seen a phone, or if, in their time, they had all the same equipment and understanding as we have now. How much further in the future would we be today? Where would we be?
  These thoughts fade, as they normally do when I turn off the hot water that didn't exist until a couple hundred years ago. I step out of the shower, suddenly taking in everything again. I live with so many things that enhance my life, things that I couldn't imagine being without. Yet, there was once a time when everything we have today wasn't even a dream or imagination. I wonder, then, if perhaps the technology we'll have mere decades from now will be the same. We all imagine holograms and food processors, but if we can imagine those things, does that mean that what we do discover will be even more amazing?

Relationships

  Why do our hearts cling to the ones who damage it the most? Why is it that even when abused on a daily basis, even when scammed and fooled over and over again, we always come back to our tormentors? I'm sure that sometimes, we even believe that we are the ones at fault, that the behaviors and actions of our partners can be understood and forgiven. But this is the wrong way of going about things, to not confront our dangers is to go against human nature. Our hearts, though, tell us a different story.
  What if we could simply, let go? Would we all be better off? Perhaps, but then again, perhaps not. If it were so easy, could we ever find true love, or would we leave as soon as the first disagreement started? I'm sure we've all met at least one person who lives that way, who leaves as soon as things don't go their way, and that style of living almost never works out in their favor.
  So, we can't live with people, and we can't live without them? Yes... And no. An important lesson which isn't ingrained in the instincts of any animal is logic and reason. Oddly enough, logic can actually be useful for finding love. The problem is the human mind. Emotions constantly cloud our judgement, for better or worse, and this leads to either the cold, calloused partner who leaves at the drop of a hat, as well as the lost puppies who follow blindly in the wake of their master's path of destruction and abuse.
  It's important that after every fight with our partner, we take a step back, cool off. When we're in a state of neutral emotion, we can think more clearly, and decide for ourselves if this relationship is truly worth keeping. Was the fight worth it? Who started it, why, how bad was it, who hurt the other's feelings? We must be completely honest with ourselves, because it is the only way to find true love. When we are at fault, we often become defensive, but it is crucial that we don't. We must open ourselves up, completely naked, in order to find the truth. Yes, I started that fight, no, I didn't start that one. Once we do, we can find out what is wrong, and how to fix it. I need to listen more, they need to ask about my day, we both need to communicate better. These lessons are building blocks, constructing the foundation and shelter of our love. Without them, any relationship will be, at best, dysfunctional.
  When things don't work out, it hurts. We so rarely pass our true feelings, intentions, hopes, goals, dreams, and thoughts to someone else that when we do, we want to cling to them. As much as it hurts, we must realize that heartbreak is the natural process of finding love, Like being denied a credit card, only on a much grander scale. We must understand that our end goal is to find one person to share the rest of our life with, and it can't be wasted in a fruitless relationship. We have to know when to work things out, and when to part ways.
  These are a few of my thoughts on love. Ranting is likely one of my more interesting hobbies. I hope it's helped at least one person out there, and I might start doing more of these, if I see support. Until then, I'll end this rant here.