Youthful Optimism on Growth

I almost said “But at least diamonds are forever” to console a coworker but I remembered he was divorced. I’m glad that I caught myself. — a friend.

I am born naked and will die naked. I won’t be able to bring anything I’ve accumulated in my current life to my afterlife. I have to let go of everything — not just material possessions but my knowledge, experiences, and people also.

Whenever I picture my life I imagine a long-tailed curve. The curve starts at f(0) = 0, rapidly ascends, plateaus, and slowly descends until it hits f(t) = 0 again.

I am relatively young and so are most of my friends. This means that we’ve only experienced the growth portion of this curve. There are micro-perturbations which shakes our lives up and down but for the most part, my life gets better every year.

Growth is a pattern I see and I am conditioned to expect more. Growth makes me optimistic. It allows me to forget my current difficulties because I hope that everything is going to be better tomorrow. I’m accustomed to grasping onto new things every day. Letting things go — it’s a foreign concept to me.

That’s why I can say things like Diamonds are forever without a second thought. That’s why I can romanticize with things such as everlasting love or eternal vocation. I know that this trajectory will not last. There will be an eventual descend — Mean Value Theorem proves this mathematically. I will need to learn how to let go of things. Indeed, I will be forced to let go whether I am ready or not. My mind will become cloudy over time. My body will rust. Even if they don’t, people around me will slowly fade out until I am the last man standing.