The Wall

Current mood: thoughtful

Imagine a brick wall. And imagine in this brick wall is a hole, shaped like a perfect circle. Now imagine in your hands is a perfect square, the same diameter as the hole in the wall. Almost can fit but not quite, because it is a square and the hole is a circle.

Now imagine that as you look at this hole, and look at this square... that the square begins to glow with a soft, warm light. And on your side of the wall is soft darkness, illuminated by the warm glow of the light given off by the square in your hands. You walk up to this hole in the wall and peer through and see darkness. You can feel a cool breeze coming from the other side... yet as you press your face to that wall, peering to the other side, wondering what's there, you can almost feel the longing that exists... over there. Longing to be warm. A longing to be lit by... anything.

As you approach the hole, the square gets brighter... warmer... more illuminated. You know that if you could get this glowing square through that hole that it would become so bright, and so warm that it would both light the other side and completely provide all the warmth that the entire other side AND your side would need.

You begin to calculate the proper angle in which the square might fit into that damned perfect circular hole. As you try different angles, parts of the square, but never the whole, poke through to the other side. When it does, you can hear sighs of relief coming from the other side of the wall. All whatever is on that other side wants is this warmth, this glow, this... square. This response pushes you further. You realize that with this angle you can get 30% of the square into the whole, and while you somehow *know* deep inside that the square will never fit... the appreciation, either for you trying or for you getting part of the square in... makes you want to just try harder. For when you do get the largest possible part through the hole enough... it lights the other side and provides it the warmth it seems to have lacked.

Your tries become more persistent. Eventually, that which is on the other side begins to beckon... but you begin to realize that your square, while warm and bright... it will never fit. You withdraw. You think of other ways. Perhaps if you were to alter the square... change it somehow. You attempt... and fail.

Over time, you realize that the square is indestructible. It is what it is: a square that will never fit in that circular hole. As you you sit in front of that brick wall and gaze at the square, you ponder this situation, wondering why you had to have a square... why not a circle? Why can't I change the square?

You glance up at the circular hole, which you haven't looked at in sometime and you realize that it seems smaller. You stand and examine, and realize that, actually... it's the same size it's always been. The square never would have fit. No matter how you have tried, geometry and physics and the basic law of things have dictated that your square would have *never* fit in that circular hole. You realize that because the square seemed to glow more brightly, and seemed to feel warmer when you tried that you overlooked the fact that it would never have worked. You begin to feel silly that you thought that would happen at all. Your new perspective, while hasn't changed physically, it mentally has provided you an entirely new point of view.

And now you can continue on and find the brick wall, that has the square hole that will fit your perfect square.




Moral of the story:
1. I love analogies.
2. The square is your love, and the brick wall represent someone you might try to love.
3. The circular hole represents someone who would love you if they could, but the hole in the brick wall of their heart... just isn't shaped the way your love/square is.
4. That's okay.