According to an internet counter on one website dedicated to roughly estimating the population of the Earth at any given moment, the planet is host to 6,509,409,546 people as of 3:30 p.m. eastern time, March 28, 2005. This counter increases by around three units every second, which means by the time you finish this sentence, there will be enough humans born in that miniscule duration to form a basketball team.
This raises some interesting points such as, “how do
they calculate the birth rate as opposed to the death rate arrived at three
people per second?” or “who bothers thinking this crap up?”, and most
significantly, “who will all these new humans vote for American Idol?” Enticing stuff really.
It also calls into question the validity and romance
on the One True Love. Let’s do the math.
There is six and a half billion people currently
converting oxygen. According to further statistics, three-fifths of the world’s
population is female, meaning we're already left with two and a half billion
men, to choose from. Deduct the underage boys and the extremely geriatric,
along with the married, the mentally deranged, the Catholic priests, and the
criminally violent, and you should be left with about (and I’m guessing at this
point) a billion.
As an added modifier, let’s disqualify the huge chunk
of men you will never meet anyway due to geographic, language and time
constraints. . As I find no resources to
estimate this demographic, I’m going to say you’ve still got a fair amount of
nominally sane, sperm producing males left to contemplate, and who
may reciprocally consider you as a perfect match.
So you see, the first
obstacle of serious consideration towards the possibility of the One True Love is that it literally is one-in-a-million-lottery. You have to consider the
immense amount of good fortune or, if you believe in this sort of thing,
destiny involved in finding the perfect match given the sheer magnitude of men out there. Its worst than finding a needle in a sack of needles. We got to
endure a lot of pin heads and pricks.
Now if the romantic supposition of the One True Love
was more than just a notion and was actually a watertight fact of human
existence, if by some fantastic science they are able to demonstrate that two
people are indeed meant for each other in the most biological senses, I believe that the entire human race will come to an abrupt end. On the occasion that CNN or the scientific Americans can excitedly publishes its findings that trough comprehensive DNA testing or through an accidental CAT scan of deliriously happy couple, they have discovered that
there is such a thing a the perfect match. I believe that we will be dead soon
after. Dead. Like the leaders of the Abu Sayyaf.
There are certain things that man is not supposed to
know for certain. Or better yet, there are certain things man is supposed to
earn the right to know for certain. The existence of God, the attainment of
peace, and the One True Love. These are the concepts that should never be
compromised or cheapened by convenient access, because by their very essence, they can only be realized through a process. Like jealous deities, these abstraction demand sacrifice, and diligence, and allegiance, before the miracles and bounty can be witnessed. They are the fuel and the engines of human evolution and it is not the knowledge of them that drives us, but it is
process of searching for them that makes us worthier people. The answer is only satisfying when the right question is asked.
Because it hurts like a serrated knife sawing slowly
through my shinbone when we're apart, it appears obvious, to me, that what I am suffering is a symptom of true love. Because his arms melded seamlessly
into the contour of my body, & our conversations
were almost poetic in cadence and resonance, & he smelled like freshly sharpened Mongol pencils (which happens to drive me insane with lust), I assume it must be true love.. Unfortunately, such symptoms are hardly accurate indicators of a proper diagnosis. I suffer such bouts of polarized emotions all the time; whether it’s on a date (well, kinda something like it) or when I have too much to drink. Heck, I feel I could marry this cup of coffee I’m sipping right now.
This is not to say that I'm wrong about *e%* or
whoever it may be, being the ones amongst the millions out there. It seems
evident that he must be special if "I feel that he is". And perhaps, he could
be the perfect match for me. I’m not saying that he is. Let’s just assume
that. And you know who I’m referring to. Right?
I must divert myself from such a restrictive philosophy. As I stated earlier, True Love is one of those things that has to be earned, not just discovered. We all hear stories of couples that meet in the most unexpected of circumstances, and have stayed together despite the rigors of age and senescence, and who claim to have been fortunate enough to have ended up with their kindred soul. For every wedding speech that created
these mushy anecdotes, I guarantee there are just as much as much separation statements claiming “diametrically opposed differences”. While it is certainly romantic to imagine two wandering souls finding each other amidst the ocean of possible permutations, it is so much more exhilarating to find that they worked it as well.
To return to my hypothesis that we would all drop
dead upon the conclusive discovery that there was but one person for each
person, and that we could actually find out right away, let us embark on a
disturbing fiction. Imagine a machine, like a photo booth, wherein one could
sit inside, pay a couple thousands of pesos, and have the computer within
analyze the participant through x-rays or whatnot, and within five minutes
print out a picture of his One True Love complete with his email address and
the best time to instant message him. Out of nagging curiosity, and against my better judgment, I probably would take the damn test. But a smarter person would refuse.
Because all the poetry and art and communal progress
that we, as a race, have achieve thus far, will unravel when Marc Ace is
supposed to be with %E*#. I knew it. Deep down inside, at
the bosom of our personal hells, we all knew it.
I believe in true love, but not necessarily a One
True Love that exist independently on our influence. That would be an
unbelievably a cruel algebra. I think the mathematics of singularity, while
romantic beyond description and enthusiasm reserved for unique situations. But requisite to that I believe that everybody should be able to love again with the same ardor, even with a different person. Circumstances beyond our control will occasionally determine whether or not we can be with a person, such as my secret love that is not a secret anymore (do you want me to divulge it again? my name is.... R*** ( clear commercial)). If we order ourselves to a force we cannot control, we risk crippling our ability to assimilate and enjoy future experiences, sometimes permanently.
To bring this rambling article to concise summation,
we have to be optimistic about what we are going through, regardless of how
bleak it may seem. Perhaps, there is such a thing as one person per person, but that is a matter of personal philosophy best exercise by loving him the
best as I can, while I can. In the end, having a healthy, fruitful
relationship with another is simply a reflection of how much I'm having a
healthy, fruitful relationship with myself.
One day. Hopefully, even I will settle down and end
up with the person I love, not because was engineered by fate or biology to be my perfect match, but because we both worked at it. Or because of a potent viral epidemic wipes out every other man on the planet, making me the last virile male specimen in an Amazonian island of double X chromosomes. In which case I refuse to be selfish with my love.
