Dictates of the Heart, Restraints of the Mind

Life is unfair.  Yes, it’s full of absurdity and pain.  That which we want, we cannot have.  We long, we yearn, we pine.  Will such passion have an ultimate purpose beyond the grave?  Some of us experience harder fortunes than others, but nobody is immune from the loss of a loved one, unrequited love, or a debilitating ailment.  Few and far between are those lucky souls who get to experience love in its purest form.  Fewer still are those who live a life without regrets.  Buried deep beneath the rubble of our heart lies a crushed soul, an inner core upon which the weight of the world—its obligations, expectations, and commitments—presses ever harder.  Yet the dictates of the heart will be heard, for as Pascal has written, the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.  We possess an indefinable strength to press on, despite continual shocks to the system that heartache, loss, grief, or regret inflict upon us from time to time.  Even pleasant memories are problematic, for they give us images of what could have been even as they make us smile.  Life is not just unfair.  It can be cruel as well.