How Are You?

It is amazing how the simplest of questions can lead to such deep thought. How are you? For most people most of the time the short answer, the answer most hoped for, the answer most often given, is patently obvious. Fine.

In a quick exchange of greetings that is all well and good and all that is expected or required. But, what about those occasions when a close friend really wants to know? So much so, that they repeat the question again, more emphatically and with that look of genuine concern on their face. Even if you are doing 'fine', that simple, short answer, though truthful, may seem a bit terse ... like the ole brush-off.

The answer to that oft asked question is difficult for a number of reasons.

It is difficult to answer because life is, by it's nature, a very fluid situation. I may have indeed been 'fine' ten minutes ago, but now I feel somewhat less than 'fine'. And, ten minutes from now I may feel completely differently again. Perhaps feeling anger or ecstasy, or any number of a huge array of human emotions.

It is difficult to answer because it is hard to quantify. At what point am I 'fine' as opposed to not 'fine'? Where is that threshold? And what exactly am I measuring? My feelings of fineness? The fineness of my present circumstances? For the truly thoughtful, I suppose it is two separate questions. Perhaps they should be asked separately? How are things? How are you?

It is difficult to answer because we really don't know how we are doing. How often do we actually stop and consider exactly what our present situation is or exactly how we feel about it? {Please permit me a moment to make a sex based generalization. No, I am not a sexist but ... in general, women are less likely to know what their precise situation is and more likely to know how they feel about things. Us guys are more likely to have a good grasp of our situation and less likely to have given any thought whatsoever about how we feel about it.}

So, how am I?

I guess I'll have to give it some thought and get back to you on that one.

Relationships & Quantum Physics

It has been said that the one constant is change. Disappointment, it seems, has also become a constant in my life.

Sunday, December 3^rd , part of my reality changed. What I though was – wasn't. Perhaps reality itself did not change. Perhaps only my perception of reality changed. But, once again, whether brought on by someone else's words and actions, or brought on by my own inflated expectations, I find myself mired in disappointment once again.

Was I misinterpreting the situation? Was I blinded by my own want for it to be so?

I truly believed that I was on the verge of something remarkable in it's beauty and purity. Something based on openness, trust, mutual respect, and mutual attraction. What I thought was a flower about to blossom turned out to be more like an "Indian Summer"; awesome in it's promise of warmth and joy-filled playfulness, but fleeting and giving way to a wintry reality.

Sometimes I fear that loneliness will also be my constant companion. Don't get me wrong, a certain amount of solitude is good for a man. It's just that lately I fear that I will never know true companionship and deep intimacy again.

Of course to say 'again' implies that I knew it once. I am not certain that I ever have. Perhaps my perception of reality was inaccurate then as well.

Why is it so hard to discern reality? According to some quantum physicists the mere act of observation alters reality. So is reality therefore unknowable?

According to other quantum physicists we construct our own realities. So is there no reality or are there billions of realities?

Perhaps we each have our own reality – shaped partly by our desires and partly by the occasional glimpse of ultimate reality.

Apparently I had constructed my own reality but it was real only to me. That reality eventually collided with someone else's reality. It seems to me that there must be an ultimate reality that we both are straining to perceive.

But then, when it comes to relationships, what is reality? Is our relationship what I think it is? Is our relationship what you think it is? Is our relationship what this observer or that observer thinks it is?

Or, is a relationship something we create by combining our perceived relational realities together into one? In this "brave new world" of quantum physics is oneness possible? Is love a singularity?

Of course, as a Christian, I believe God to be the ultimate reality. In our current human situation God is not completely knowable. So then, in a sense, isn't all that we perceive a figment of God's imagination? He imagined and spoke and His creation is. His reality is. Is our struggle in reconciling our reality to His? Is reality not completely knowable because He is not completely knowable?

And, what has all of this to do with me not finding a wife yet?