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[Essays in Love #2] The Sublimity of Finite Beings Acting Out Eternity
We know now. We know that love is a trick of hormones or a type of social contract, and that its expiration date can be triggered at any time by biological or psychological variables. Even as we recognize that the word “eternity” is an empty set that cannot exist in the physical world, we speak of eternity once again. Is this a foolishness born from a lack of information, or a tragic gamble predicated on loss?
“Performative Belief” That Turns Fiction into Reality
Just as the empty set exists in mathematics for the sake of logical completeness, “eternity” in love is an essential fiction introduced for the sake of relational completeness. The act of loving as if it will last forever, while knowing it will not, is not a bet on a future outcome; it is a performative device to push the “density of the present moment” to its absolute limit.
When we discussed the resurrection, we noted that while it lacks scientific evidence, it possesses an undeniable weight due to the “transformations that followed.” Love is the same. The promise of eternity may eventually break, but the transformation and growth accumulated within us during the time we believed and immersed ourselves in that promise remain as undeniable realities. The attitude of treating fiction as reality creates the highest density in our lives.
Courtesy Toward Elements with Low Weights
In the “saturated world” we modeled, the sense of loss after love ends is not “nothingness,” but merely a “state of shifted weights.” Some might call this nihility and look upon their next love with cynicism, but those who dream of eternity struggle to find the elements that still shine, even within those thinned-out weights.
To love as if it will last forever is to refuse to let the data of one’s life be entirely contaminated by the variables of “breakup” or “betrayal.” It is a declaration that even if the result is destined to be a failure, one will navigate the process autonomously. This is humanity’s most elegant rebellion against the rule of “finiteness” dictated by the system.
The Fine Line Between Foolishness and Sublimity
Foolishness is a state of suffering because one cannot change the result; sublimity is a state of protecting the value of the process while knowing the result. Just as choosing the arduous path of exercise over the shortcut of weight-loss drugs was an act of guarding biological sovereignty, giving one’s whole heart to a promise known to be fragile is an act of guarding “emotional sovereignty.”
The failure to fulfill a promise of love belongs to the realm of the other, but the sincerity at the moment the promise is made belongs entirely to my own realm. The lips that speak of eternity may be foolish, but the heart sustaining those words possesses an existential weight firmer than any physical law.
The Final Vow in a Non-Empty Universe
The universe is not empty for even an inch; every abstraction is overflowing with sets. The space where love has ended is not an empty set either. It is packed with variables of shared memories and the weights of a matured self.
Therefore, there is no need to fear loving as if it were eternal. It is not a vain effort to chase a non-existent “eternity,” but a creative act of imbuing a fleeting moment with the attributes of eternity to fill the set of one’s life with the most beautiful elements. The sincerity hidden within the shell of foolishness may be the only warmth that allows us to endure this dense, cold universe.
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Chemistry Replacing Will: The “Hip” Indulgence of Weight-Loss Drugs
Recently, the obesity rate in the United States showed a significant decline for the first time since records began. What finally bent the obesity curve—which decades of public health campaigns failed to nudge—was none other than “medicine.” People now opt for the convenience of a single injection over the agony of sweat. The fact that this method—physically erasing symptoms rather than eliminating the root cause of the disease—is hailed as today’s most sophisticated and “hip” solution leaves a bitter aftertaste.
The Loss of Process and the Worship of Results
A healthy diet and consistent exercise are the standard solutions to the disease of obesity. This involves more than just losing weight; it encompasses a process of “self-discipline”—controlling one’s body and governing one’s desires. In modern society, however, this process is dismissed as too costly and inefficient.
Weight-loss drugs feel “hip” because they allow one to bypass the “struggle of will.” They skip the time required for painful moderation and patience, leaping directly to the output: a slender body. The ability to swiftly produce a seamless result, regardless of the process, is the value most favored by capitalism. Now, a lean physique is becoming less a “testament to diligence” and more a “testament to the economic power and information access” required to afford expensive medication.
The Convenience of a System That Ignores the Root Cause
The root cause of obesity lies less in individual laziness and more in a modern dietary structure dominated by refined carbohydrates and sugar, as well as a labor environment that forces sitting over walking. True treatment would involve resolving these structural issues and correcting individual habits.
However, the system chooses to distribute medicine rather than change the structure. Changing habits is exhausting and time-consuming, while selling medicine is fast and profitable. Weight-loss drugs provide patients with a powerful “indulgence,” whispering: “Your habits aren’t the problem; it’s just your hormones.” This indulgence erases guilt and fills the void with a sophisticated image of “scientific management.”
Human Uniqueness Erased by Technology
Of course, treating obesity medically is important. However, what I find concerning is the very sensibility that suggests “solving it with drugs is hipper.” This reflects a psychological welcoming of the replacement of “moderation” and “overcoming”—once uniquely human domains—by technology.
Ultimately, we are moving toward another form of subjugation. Instead of lacing up our running shoes, we entrust our bodies to a pharmaceutical subscription system. Behind this “hip” solution—which polishes the result while neglecting the cause—hides the emptiness of the modern person who has lost the sense of controlling their own life. We may be intentionally ignoring the fact that the most efficient treatment cannot always be the healthiest healing, hidden behind the shrinking numbers on the scale.
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In a Modeled World, ‘Pure Abstraction’ Has No Place to Live
Is Abstraction Merely an “Unsolved Equation”?
I have long been fascinated by the mystery inherent in the word “Abstraction.” I believed there were realms that could not be fully explained by human language, felt only through intuition. However, the moment I define the “Collection of people who look like Timothée Chalamet” through mathematical modeling, that mystery is displaced by an arrangement of data.
Here, I arrive at a fundamental question: Could the things we have called “abstract” actually be, not something inherently metaphysical, but merely a collection of complex variables we have yet to decode?
Captured Intuition, Vanished Mystery
If I can define “resemblance” by setting five or six variables and assigning weights, it is no longer an abstraction. It is a concrete algorithm; it is a “set” with clear boundaries. In an era where reinforcement learning and computer vision capture the characteristics of objects more accurately than the human eye, the territory of the abstract is shrinking.
As machines begin to process Big Data—variables too vast for humans to handle—realms once called “inspiration” or “insight” are replaced by the cold term “pattern recognition.” The fact that I have succeeded in modeling something means I have become able to fully control and predict it. In that process, the vague beauty that abstraction once held evaporates.
Where Does Pure Abstraction Exist?
Does this mean that pure abstraction no longer exists in this world? My conclusion is this: everything we can model eventually becomes part of the “concrete” realm. For example, if we can perfectly explain the abstraction of “depression” as a model of neurotransmitter concentrations and action potentials, depression is no longer a poetic abstraction but a biological metric. Ultimately, “pure abstraction” might be nothing more than a “temporary name given to the unknown territory” that human intellect has yet to reach.
Conclusion: Dreaming of a World Beyond Modeling
Every day, I model the world. I turn the vague into sets and find generalized laws in scattered data. Yet, paradoxically, I also wait for the point where my modeling fails.
I search for that one single exception that cannot be explained by any formula or categorized into a set by any algorithm. If such a thing exists, it would be the “true abstraction” remaining in this age of sophisticated modeling. However, my rational conviction whispers: “Eventually, that too is just a matter of insufficient variables; one day, it will enter my model as well.”
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