Time-Variant Vectors

I used to think when I first came to school, that everything involving calculus was a mindless game that would only serve me in the monotony of my future career as an engineer. However, the more time that I spend living in and learning about this crazy world we live in, the more I realize that even those abstract little concepts used to make some mathematical geek happy can apply directly to the very lives that we lead.

Recently I was talking with a group of my friends about loves and loves lost, and they all seemed to strike a common cord. While we are all in a point where there is no current love, the true love is centered around that which was once lost. But the weird thing is that none of us would return to that love in our current state. Why? What leads us to deny ourselves the very thing that we long for most while on this earth? Why do we torture ourselves learning to love someone, just so that they later can be a permanent etching on our hearts?

The answer is found in those concepts founded by great mathematicians, mental geniuses, and kids trying to throw rocks at birds. The loving relationships that we all desire come down to the time-variant vectors that we like to call our lives. We are all separate entities that are moving throughout this world, each of us resides in a certain place, each of us is currently moving in a certain direction, and each of us is trying to change that direction either directly or thru lethargy. The chances that we have of ever coming into contact with a person is so slim, and even if we come into contact will it simply be a passing, a crossing of two lines? Or will it be a connection, something to where we are moving in the same direction. The chances of finding someone that’s even moving in the same direction is so slim, but once we find that, if we have the courage we hold onto them and try to correct our lives to where we are moving together.

But then the hard part comes into play, each of us continues changing direction. I think of all of those people that I’ve loved, or that my friends and family have loved and what happened to those bygone affections? Most of us if we are truthful never really stopped loving those people, but they’ve nonetheless left our lives, possibly forever. How is it that we can know that once we meet a person that their vector will be the same as ours? That we’ll continue moving in the same direction? Should we simply all wear a shirt or buttons that say, “I am at point a, headed in direction b, and moving towards c”? If life were only so simple. But until then, we must all live our lives with the uncertainty that it brings: putting our hopes on the line with those new people we meet; shielding ourselves from those things that we’re unsure of; or simply questioning if we ever should have let go and given up on something that was once so grand thinking it was so far away and perhaps not knowing that it’s within reach if only we dared to touch it. What is our own vector, and when will we find another person with a vector close enough to our own to hold on?