\ All over again

Dreams. I dreamt about someone surprising and now harbor the most sincere affection for that person. I realize it is an artificial affection, but only inasmuch as real affection is not an artificial construct itself, as though it can be measured and weighed. They have done this with pain, I understand, established a scale that allows us to compare degrees of torment. And so I suppose our scientists will eventually tackle a measurement for the opposite of pain, if that is in fact what affection is. The chart will be named after the scientist, something not so easily remembered, vaguely foreign. Olarevin or Moitaru.

"The Elsoedrin Scale of Affection measures the intensity of our feelings of compassion towards another. It is an exponential measurement, so that the difference between 8.1 (a childhood pet, crippled with age) and 8.2 (one's own infant, suffering from illness) is an order of magnitude greater than the space between 4.4 (the driver who cuts you off in traffic) and 6.8 (college instructor who refuses to believe your genuine excuse for being late)."

When I awake and throughout the day, I am running an Elsoedrin fever of 7.8.

Pity. It's that ages old technique for avoiding anger, converting whatever ire you have for someone into pity. They are acting this way because they are hurt, because they were raised wrong, because they are insecure. They said those nasty things because they feel nasty inside, and it can only be dealt with through feeling sorry for them. It is such a past-perfect aggressive approach.

Conceit. I'm not sure how the other animals must find us, but conceited comes to mind. The pigs talk to each other in the barnyard and say, 'They lord over us with their supremacy, and even while offering us to the slaughter, proclaim themselves master over death itself. Not only are we superior to you in this world, but we are the only creature who doesn't even die. When we stop breathing, we simply float away into a greater place than this.' Whatever will you eat? joke the animals. I would never laugh these days if it weren't for the humor of the damned.

Reading. Edith Wharton has been speaking to me from beyond the grave, but not very far, and thankfully in English and not some dead language that would sap all the joy from my understanding. She tells me that in order to love me, she must let me go, and I reply, I don't want your love, so feel free to stick around. And she says, whenever I see you again, it is like the first time, you happen to me all over again, and I laugh, nervously, because with everyone I've ever met, I'd prefer to be remembered for that second time, instead. Don't make me out to be better than I am, Edith. Not even the vain deserve the loneliness of the pedestal.