stac kinda rhymes with faith

i had a talk with stac tonight that was, fundamentally, about faith.

we've been talking about this marriage thing for a while, see, but last weekend we did a couple things that sort of made it more tangible: we looked at rings, and we bought a shitload of furniture for her house that will one day (hopefully sooner rather than later, regardless of the ring situation) be arranged around rooms in a home we call ours.

me, i'm not a faithful sort. i rationalize everything i come across in this life; if i can't explain it, i don't believe in it.

which is why my relationship with her has had such a uniquely profound impact on me.

it has shown me that faith takes over where rationality breaks down.

rationally, the notion of being with one person for the rest of my life--even stac--terrifies me. not because i can find anything to seriously complain about with respect to her, but because rationally i can't say that i trust myself. and this is basically what we were talking about, at least from my silly little perspective.

we all--those of us who think, anyway--have doubts about virtually every major decision we make. and i contend that those doubts have their root in fear--fear of our own ability to follow through, to deliver, to keep our word; in short, to be responsible for whatever decision we're making.

most decisions can be rationalized to the point of near certainty that they're correct; those that seem like they can't--or that aren't worth the bother--often are so insignificant that they simply don't merit the intellectual energy necessary for the rationalization.

but with love there's this other person involved that, if the love is worth a crap, has feelings and needs and goals at least equally important to your own. and you can rationalize your commitment to such a relationship till you're blue in the face, but ultimately all that rationalization points you in one direction: ya gotta have faith.

ya gotta have faith that the rationalization was correct. ya gotta have faith that the other person is as committed to the relationship as you are (even if their thought processes are diametricallly opposed to yours). and ultimately, ya gotta have faith in your own beliefs and commitments, knowing that things are bound to get tough at some or several points, and your faith may be the only thing--when rationality breaks down--that keeps you working at it.

this is the beautiful dichotomy of personal responsibility: love. when you love someone, your responsibility to that love--to yourself, to the other, to the two of you that make the one of you--requires faith. simultaneously and equally in yourself, in the other, in the two of you that make the one of you. faith is the thing that makes love permanent; without it, commitment becomes a current-state phenomenon, subject to change when the cost/benefit analysis goes negative.

with it, you know that such events are just dips in the road, and that while they will likely occur again, the final destination holds the greatest reward worth seeking: peace. for yourself, for the other, for the two of you that make the one of you.

so there you have it.

(did i just rationalize faith into existence?)