Sunday 14 April 2002

Pic of the day: The first tiny spring leaves are here! Yes! Spring is in the air, and young love, and stuff! And I'm in here, writing ...

A single paradox

Today has been a good day. Slept long, and spent much of the day helping newbies in Dark Age of Camelot. To be honest, I could not care less about the "realm vs. realm" wars that are supposedly the point of the game. The fun part is helping people find their way around, teach them strategies, dress them up in armor and hook them up with the right people. Speaking of which ... The mandatory Chris de Burgh song of the day is In a Country Churchyard:

Dressed in simple white
and wearing flowers in her hair;
music as she walks
slowly to the altar.
And picking up his Bible then
the preacher turns towards her:
"Will you take this man
to be your wedded husband?
To honor and love
in the eyes of God above ..."

I absolutely and utterly love love songs. Lovesongs, that is. The more hopelessly romantic, the better. Of course, it helps to have a catchy melody and not too confusing text too. But anyway, a huge portion of my music consumption is made up of love songs. It's not a recent thing either. I am also a great fan of lifelong marriage, the type where the love never fades, not the gunpoint type. I'm very romantic. In theory.

***

I am also, incidentally, one of the singlest singles I know of. It's not just that I've never been going steady with someone, I've not really ever dated. I've not gone out to pick up girls either (not like I'm counting that as a romantic thing, really, though to the emotionally poor I guess it could be). I can't honestly say that I have ever been in love, though I have certainly tried. And it's not like I'm some sort of eunuch, though I realize now that I was no worse off in my youth than most other boys.

It is just that I don't have that emptiness inside me. The void that only someone else can fill, someone special. I can vaguely imagine how it would be. But not as vividly as I can imagine flying through space, for instance. OK, that is an unfair comparison. I have dreamt about flying through space since I was a child. But anyway, it is not there. I am complete, and have been since my Awakening I guess. Not sure before. Perhaps I was born like this.

There are some atoms who don't normally attach to other atoms, including each others. These are commonly known as "noble gases". That's certainly putting a positive spin on it. "Chemically inert" is how the professionals describe them. Unlike all other atoms, they have their electron "shells" filled out. There is a maximum number of electrons that can attach to an atom, depending on the number of protons. Each energy level (often depicted as an orbit or "shell") can take a certain number of electrons ... 2 for the first, then 8. When these positions are not filled, the atom will try to fill them by sharing with another atom. A particularly strong bond is formed when one atom exactly completes another ... for instance, one atom lacks 1 electron and another has exactly 1 electron in its outermost shell. These two will bond together and feel no need of other atoms sharing their intimacy. Other atoms are more open and can group into larger units (carbon is most famous for this, and without this atomic polyamory there would be no life as we know it).

I guess I am Xenon. I am complete in myself, feeling no need of "an ever closer union" (as they say in Europe) with my equals. I am fairly heavy, having layers upon layers, unlike the small ones like Helium and Neon. But I am not so complex as to be intrinsically unstable, like Radon. So I guess Xenon it is. Besides, it comes from the Greek word for "strange". ^-^

***

But this still does not explain why I absolutely adore love songs. I think. Or does it? I tell myself that it's because I think of them as hymns, that they reflect the relationship between a human and its God. But frankly, the whole "Bride of the Lamb" thing creeps me somewhat out. I know it's just symbolism, but even in the sphere of religion that is not really how my relationship with my Lord is. (I think. Having had no marriage in the flesh, I would not really know, would I?) It is more like always being in the company of a loving and trustworthy older brother who can give me good advice and help me when I'm in trouble, and who has no interest whatsoever in talking about biochemistry, cosmology or most of the other things I'd really like to talk with him about...

So, to sum it up, I don't really know. It is a paradox. And so, I guess, am I.