Spend enough time with people, and you think you know them. This is one of the greatest follies of being human: the arrogance of believing that by observing another person, one can fully understand the entirety of their existence. We make assumptions based on observable routine: she likes her coffee this way, he walks with this gait, they talk in some manner. And from those bits and pieces of visible behavior, from the scraps of half-remembered conversation, we form some manner of conclusion about the other. Yes, I know this person.It is a dangerous assertion, because humans are an eternal mystery. And once we think we know something, we are no longer curious about it. The experiment is over, and it is time to move on to study other things. Maybe other people. And we do not stop to ask: has something changed? We do not continue to ask: is there something more I need to know? We settle into a groove of relative comfort, believing that all is well, because all is known.But there is always something in other people that will be beyond our ken. Something we do not observe, because we do not care to observe it. Sometimes, we do not notice what is right in front of us: like the trees rushing past in the window of the train, or the bubbles at the hot spring we're supposed to be enjoying. And someone comes along and points them out, someone with eyes untainted by certainty. And it is as though our own experiences have changed.And sometimes we do not notice when a person is unhappy. And you think, how can they be unhappy when we were so in love? How can they be unhappy when nothing has changed from the times that we were happy? We want to understand, because we know this person, and this isn't who they are. We can fix this. I can change. It can be better.But it's far too late. It's always too late. The mistake was the certainty. Humans are a mystery that cannot be solved. Love isn't an answer. It's just another question.
