The price of love is grief. All that is irreplaceable will inevitably be lost. The only reprieve from this relentless and remorseless chain of suffering is death. It is by this calculus that we may conclude death is the only promise life holds, and that it is therefore the most sacred thing we will encounter. Faith is not the belief that everything will turn out well. It is instead the belief that whatever the consequence of virtue, the meaning of our action is not determined by the excruciatingly unpredictable outcome of our endeavor, but by the nature of our struggle to create beyond ourselves, and the values we embody.
To be just and kind when all is well - when we have been victorious, when no truth eludes us - is known to be quite easy. When things have not gone our way, this is more difficult. Are we up to a sort of magnanimity even in defeat? I have long concluded that magnanimity must be preceded by victory, but it may also be our ally when the purpose has not been realized.
I have considered for some time the meaning of the phrase: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." (In spite of a smug suspicion of cliche, occasionally no escape can be found from its seductive charm.) I believe the mistake made when implementing this bit of wisdom is in waiting to ascertain the result of a first attempt, before the second more ingenious attempt is made. Instead of aggressively inventing an alternative solution after the next in the face of a vexing problem, we determine one early conclusion to be the most valid, and sit astride that mount even as it rides into oblivion. This first conclusion may have been valid, without being sound. It is better to draw arrow after arrow from the quiver, letting each loose at an accelerating pace, honing our precision and calibrating our aim while the last quarrel is still in flight, so that idea after idea might speed into the universe and the effect of our effort be maximized.
For the ideological, this is clearly not an alternative. The correct arrow and the correct path are known from the outset, no new or ingenious conception can improve upon the archetype. Rather, it is the ideological archer's purpose to in every attempt mimic the last more perfectly. If instead our suspicion extends even to our own ideas and methods, then our purpose is quite different than that.
I have had in my mind an idea about capsules; encapsulation. That is, the way in which ideas emerge like bubbles in what was otherwise a vacuous space. They grow, their shapes change accommodating the other bubbles they encounter. Eventually the membrane that contains them thins, finally ruptures, and the capsule is gone. Presumably the contents spill out into the abyss, suffocated by the vacuum, or are drawn into some unsatisfied void. If we were to slow this process down, so that the thinning of this membrane is extended, I believe we would understand the way in which this process mimics the development of ideas, and also entire cultural concepts; tribes, religions, and nations.
Civilizations behave this way. The bubble that contains them deflects and reflects meaning in such a way that the accepted truths of the culture are confirmed by the observation of those within it. Just as at the edge of our solar system a frontier exists, beyond which the same laws do not hold, or at least they are not oriented and directed by the massive and powerful object inhabiting the hallowed and influential position at the center of the capsule. The draw of the sun, the guiding light from within the system, is finally overcome by the turbulent uncertainty of the region beyond its influence.
Without this membranous limitation there is no center, no source, no substance. Everything in the capsule is determined by its orientation; all meaning is derived from it. That which opposes is characterized by that which is opposed. That which is opposed is shaped by that which resists. To turn away from something only confirms its existence and influence, and it therefore effects us and defines us. Within this membrane every reference must be made to some other inhabitant of the enclosure. This is the limit of what can be said, unless we are able to achieve a perspective that escapes the capsule entirely, observing objects and their relationships from a liberated perspective, where the quality of the object itself can be perceived,
To think of the slow thinning of this membrane of encapsulation as the harbinger of death - as the capsule that is our body thins with age - fails to fully describe the character of this inexorable dissolution. Instead of imagining the identity confined within the capsule lost, we might instead conclude that an enlightenment has occurred, and that limitations have been overcome. In this way, something precious is gained, even as something irreplaceable is lost.