It Never Really Goes Away

“I want to move on but I can’t.”
“Moving on solves all my problems.”
“I'm moving on, and it’s the best thing that’s happened to me.”
“I think I'm getting the hang of it, you know, being single again.”

Trust me; I’ve heard these, and their derivations, from friends and friends of friends a hundred times already. And I’ve given all sorts of advices and said tangles of words to them, to their different situations. What I didn’t say, what I didn’t really realize until recently, is the connection of moving on and the laws of nature.

I am a person of science, and am proud of it. The things around us, the events happening, the life lessons, can be explained by the laws of physics. And I will tell you why moving on isn’t really a thing, because love doesn’t really go away, using these laws.

You know the Law of Conservation of Matter? It says that matter is neither created nor destroyed. From that we can infer that matter can only be TRANSFORMED into one kind or another. We can also infer that there is only a finite amount of matter existing in this universe. The law of conservation of matter is universal, that’s why it’s called a law. Let’s now apply that to the average adolescent girl a
nd/or boy. If you’re already having an idea of where this article is going, then good for you. Anyway, read on and hold that thought.

We love. We love all sorts of things like chocolate, Sims, Krispy Kreme, How I Met Your Mother, cars, dogs, family, friends and special someones. Let’s think of that love, that feeling for another person or object, as matter in the universe. As in the law, there is only a finite amount of matter and can only be transformed, not created or destroyed. Inference will tell us that we can only love a certain number of people and/or things with a certain amount. Also, when we love someone or something before, and we think that we now no longer do, that’s not because we don’t feel anything for them, but the love we used to give them is replaced with or transformed into something else.

Nakakalito ba? Hahaha. Hmm. Think RPG. We can only have a certain amount of love or other feelings that we can give, example, 100 XP. We can expend 10 XP on ourselves, 10 XP on our family, 5 XP on our favorite movie etc. or whatever; the point is, we can only give our attention, our feelings to a finite number of things. There are all sorts of feelings: love, friendship, hate, annoyance, pity etc. We can also choose who or what to feel for in this life and how much feeling we want to expend. The catch is that if we spend our XPs hating the important stuff, then your life is pretty much a waste.

This would also explain why the intensity of a feeling is same before and after a breakup. Let’s say I get into a relationship and I use up 10 XP for my boyfriend. While in the relationship, that 10XP is love. When we break up, and choose to feel hate for him, I’d most likely feel 10 XPs worth of hate. Same thing if I choose to feel friendship, awkwardness, or whatever.

Nothing is a feeling too. When I say nothing, I mean ‘nothing’ as in, “I feel nothing for him”. ‘Feeling nothing’ means not caring, and caring is a feeling, therefore ‘not caring’ is a negation of ‘caring’. Going back to the example, if I choose to ‘feel nothing’ for him, I’d feel 10 XPs worth of not caring.

Think of the people you feel for: your friends, family, haters, acquaintances. People you love, people you hate, people you ignore. Nature tells us that we only feel for a certain number with a certain amount, so we have to choose who or what and how much. If we’re right, then we have to keep the right feelings stable, otherwise they will transform, and we have to look out for the healthy transformation of the wrong feelings, otherwise they will transform into something either worse or useless.

As for moving on, remember, since feelings are neither created nor destroyed, we never really move on. We just replace love with something else, like hate or friendship.