By Heber Gurrola
He walks into a room and his gaze meets hers.
After a brief exchange of thoughts, innuendoes and enticing hints he decides that it's well worth a second rendezvous upon which a proper and promising rapport will surely be established. Days go by and every re-ecounter exerts a catalytic effect on this newly born relationship. What on first imppression came off as a vain braggadocio on his part, now is starting to ease into her perception as a luring strut. And what at first glance he interpreted as a petulant overweening look in her face, had abrublty metamorphosed into the very sweetener in his cup of tea. Initially it was all about feigning indifference as to arouse his interest, but eventually uninhibited disclosure became her greatest allure. It was a two-way street. While he veiled his curiosity in fumes of apathy, deep inside he knew that the cosmos had just presented before his eyes the mere subject of his prayers. This is it, a series of engaging conversations have made it clear that although mutual discursive dissent will be inevitable, it is perhaps this occasional piquancy, the very combustible which will fuel this two-seater into a joyful journey. However, there is one caveat; the proverbial elephant in the room that tends to be deliberatly overlooked.
She is shackled almost by virtue of her birth to a dogma whose intransigent doctrine alienates those who differ in thought, if not from her social life, certainly from her intimate personal life. She is a gift from the gods in all other senses. She appears to have been meticulously crafted just for him when it comes to anything that matters. He and she stand on similar moral grounds, both possess a relatively comparable academic competence and the two demonstrate an equal zest for lively discussion. Yet the tenets of her faith are like a crimp towards the end of a garden hose, thwarting the harmonious flow of what would otherwise be an enviable ongoing courtship.
As a parenthetical sidenote I submit to you that what's a bit odious about dogma is that it is not amenable to reason and argument. Since it is not grounded or even sustained by the largesse of the intellect, dogma is impervious to logic and pragmatism. Compulsory abidance is enforced upon the youth by their respective progenitors and any efforts to diverge from the tradition even as an adult are generally chastised by way of a sort of social exile and disavowing frowns if not through threats and violence. I shall not digress any further, put in stark terms; dogma sucks.
I found it necessary to sidetrack a little because it is important that we fully comprehend the emphasis afforded to their daunting circumstance. Here is a young couple whose path to personal and professional realization has been carpeted in silk, yet the burden of one's congenital worldview effectively impedes and shatters all positive hope for a future together. In other words, this pair will ineluctably gravitate toward failure, and the worst thing is, they will KNOWINLGY do so. The end is as foreseeable as the lasting Minnesotan winter. Though hiterto they have both enojoyed having lapped up from pristine waters, a rather sour gulp appears ominous in the coming stream, glaring mirthless and approaching in a steady pace. Their only hope is the possibilty of her dereliction in the face of a nagging and intrusive faith.
So I guess the big question is: In the teeth of an imminent and portentous break up, should this couple even bother to embark on a "pointless" venture? And if so, if they set out reaping the fruits of passion and emotional attachment, will this rhapsodic stint outweigh the appalling, unavoidable and predictable ending? And the answer is yes, they should. And to shore up this answer, I have devised an analogous instance of a close-knit attachment that is usually cut short by a predictable passing.
Think of a pet. It could be a charming kitten or the typical ebullient little puppy. Dogs have an average lifespan of 12 years. Hence, by constenting to the adoption of a pet, you have tacitly acquiesced to its intrinsic corrolary i.e. the certainty that he/she will one day die. Furthermore, those who have had the experience of losing a pet know that it is indeed a devastating ordeal in comparison to which, most break ups, simply pale into ingsignificance.
Arguably, most of the pain involved in any loss has to do with the amount of time spent in the company of such loved one, be it a pet or a person. That is why the bereavement that one endures when mourning, say, a mother's departure, is astronomically more profound and poignant than that of the passing of some ordinary aqcuaintance. This is also why the time length of our deppression after a break up goes up in conjunction with the longevity of the relationship. In economics this phenomenon is normally known as "sunk costs". It is the feeling that we have invested time and effort into a business (in this case a relationship), that when it ends our loss figures with repect to such time.
Ergo, I submit that if one has sufficient valor to foray into the aqcuisition of a pet in light of its impending death, then it is only logically consistent to indulgingly succumb to the oenomels of love, sex and attraction, however ephemeral these promise to be.
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