Friday, June 20, 2008

[is it worth hoping?]

Life is about experiments and risk. Sometimes you don't realise you're in one, sometimes you don't realise you conjured up one, sometimes you don't realise the experiment has been going on for almost all your life; till you take a step back and look at the big picture. As unpredictable as life is (I read somewhere that the only constant thing about life is change), some experiments turn out great, sometimes they blow up in your face. Good thing none of my lab experiments haven't blown up in my face, at least not literally.

When you're being bombarded with problems, insurmountable hurdles, there is always that chance to succeed. But rising above that challenge is difficult when there is the people factor, a factor other than you, which is more often than not, even more unpredictable than life itself. Or perhaps predictably unpredictable. As in any (failing) experiment, you can try, and you can try. But how much do you try? Often you think of giving people second chances without even realising it. But if compound A isn't gonna react with compound B no matter how many different ways you approach it, are you still gonna go on like a mad scientist? Or do you say enough is enough?

It's not easy to put an end to hope. Hoping that perhaps this time the experiment might work. Hoping that if you do things differently this time, the outcome might be different. Maybe, just maybe, A and B will produce C this time. And then when you receive a slap in the face (or perhaps realise, finally, that you've been receiving too many slaps in the face), you decide: it is time to stop this experiment. Enough.

"It's not enough to know how to ride - one must also know how to fall" Mexican Proverb quote

No it is not quitting. How could it be quitting when you've tried repeating the experiment for years, without even knowing consciously you were hoping for the best? How could it be quitting when all this time there has been no evidence that the experiment would succeed? This is probably what is meant by a reality check. The reality is, sadly, that no matter how many ways you try to combine A and B, they simply aren't gonna react. No you haven't failed. You have succeeded in accepting the situation. And you have also made a discovery, albeit not the one you hypothesized: that A will not react with B. Probably not, ever.

So where do you go from here then? Do you give up hope entirely? It would be easy to say, since my experiments have not been working, there is no point being a scientist/experimentor anymore. Yet being the basis of what life is, where would the challenge be if we stopped experimenting and gave up hope? Perhaps it just means it's time to move on. Experiment with different materials, hope for different outcomes. Hope for Life. Because some dreams do come true.

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