more things i know [work in progress]

I know that you can control who you love to some extent, but not by using willpower. You can control how much you invest in the relationship, and you can often exert at least some control over proximity; distance can mute feeling. But you cannot just will yourself into not loving someone-- you have to control the contributing factors, or you will control nothing at all.

• I know, too, that at some point, there is little you can do. You're too far gone. Distance could still help if you could bring yourself to observe it, but when someone brings you light and joy and becomes the center of your world, it is so unbelievably hard to disentangle yourself from that bright, shining, beautiful soul.

• But despite how difficult it may be, I know that I cannot continue to allow myself to love you like this, because if I continue down this path I will one day resent you.

I know that you cannot "earn" your way into someone's heart; if they do not love you like that, trying to be "good enough" in their eyes will be a losing battle. You will cry your heart out, you will wonder why you weren't chosen, you will wish so desperately that things could have been different-- and, above all, you will not succeed. No amount of your emotional turmoil and fervent hope will change their reality. The problem is not that you are not good enough to be loved; the problem is that sometimes, people just don't feel the same, and that is not anyone's fault-- least of all your own.

I know that seeing people as facts of nature is the single greatest relationship hack you will ever come across, and the most difficult one to implement. You become frustrated with someone because you think they could be better, you think they should be better, you expect them to do better. Once you release your expectations and accept that they are who they are, and stop trying to change them to fit your mold, you will be able to love them much more easily and avoid conflict.

I know that there is no greater goal in life than using one's time wisely. What that looks like for you will be different from what that looks like for me. But time spent well is a life spent well, and a life spent well is all that we can hope for.

I know that great power does indeed carry great responsibility. I used to wish, once upon a time, that I was a dog, just sleeping all day and being happy for no reason and serving dutifully in the role of pampered pet. But I now know that I would never trade to be anything other than human; I know that maximizing happiness is not my goal; I know that I do not want an easy life, I want a beautiful one-- and that means I want to be able to shape the world in ways that only a human can.

I know that the systems of today were almost always designed by someone not much more intelligent than you or I. I know it is dangerous to place reverent respect on tradition that is no longer serving society and its people, and I know that our trust in the people who lived before us is often misplaced. I also know that placing too much weight on defaults is dangerous for this reason-- we assume intentionality where there may not be any.

I know that I do not know who I am anymore, but I know who and what I love, and I'm trying to slowly build from there. I think that's as good a starting point as any.