A friend sent this excerpt from Paul Coelho’s book – The Zahir… He wanted my view on this… I thought its worth writing here…rather than just emailing him… So here you go Sanju!
“I went to a train station today and learned that the distance between railway tracks is always 143.5 centimeters or 4 feet 8.1/2 inches. Why this absurd measurement? I asked my girlfriend to find out and this is what she discovered. When they built the first train carriages, they used the same tools as they had for building horse-drawn carriages. And why that distance between the wheels on carriages? Because that was the width of the old roads along which the carriages had to travel. And who decided that roads should be that width? Well, suddenly, we are plunged back into the distant past. It was the Romans, the first great road-builders, who decided to make their roads that width. And why? Because there chariots were pulled by two horses, and when placed side by side, the horses they used at the time took up 143.5 cm. (!)
So the distance between the tracks I saw today used by our state-of- the- art high-speed (French) trains, was determined by the Romans. (!) When people went to the United States and started building railways there, it didn’t occur to them to change the width and so it stayed as it was. This even affected the building of space shuttles. American engineers thought the fuel tanks should be wider, but the tanks were built in Utah and had to be transported by train to the Space Center in Florida, and the tunnels couldn’t take anything wider. And so they had to accept the measurement that the Romans had decided as the ideal. But what has all this to do with marriage?
I paused. It has everything to do with marriage… At some point in history, someone turned up and said: when two people get married, they must stay frozen like that for the rest of their lives. You will move along side by side like two tracks, keeping always that same distance apart. Even if sometimes one of you needs to be a little further away or a little closer, that is against the rules. The rules say: be sensible, think of the future, think of your children. You cant change, you must be like two railway tracks that remain the same distance apart all the way from their point of departure to their destination. The rules don’t allow for love to change, or to grow at the start and diminish halfway through – it is too dangerous. And so, after the enthusiasm of the first few years, they maintain the same distance, the same solidity, the same functional nature. Your purpose is to allow the train bearing the survival of the species to head off into the future: your children will only be happy if you stay just as you were – 143.5 cm. apart!!
If you are not happy with something that never changes, think of them, think of the children you brought into the world. Think of your neighbours. Show them that you are happy, eat roast beef on Sundays, watch television, help the community. Think of society: dress in such a way that everyone knows you are in perfect harmony Never glance to the side, someone might be watching you, and that could bring temptation, it could mean divorce, crisis, depression. Smile in all the photos. Put the photos in the living room, so that everyone can see them. ….. but never forget, these rules were established long ago and must be respected. Who established these rules? That doesn’t matter. Don’t question them, because they will always apply, even if you don’t agree with them.”
Well…to be honest…I don’t really agree with the writer here. Yes, the rules used to be those…till sometime back. But not anymore. With changing times, people are becoming sensible enough to think of themselves and their happiness before thinking of the ’society’. That doesn’t mean we ignore the society completely…not here in India for sure… but things are definitely changing. We are moving towards more of a WIN-WIN situation..
Having said this, I don’t deny that keeping a certain distance in a relationship is very important…but can that distance remain the same always? I don’t think so… I feel it changes as the relationship evolves… otherwise how else do you define the evolution of a relationship? In any relationship, there are times when you need some space and there are times when you want someone right beside you to comfort you… and if you can understand and respond well to those needs of your partner, that’s, by my definition, a perfect (or close to perfect) relationship…. and not when you constantly be the same distance apart….its insane… you gotta be pretending to do that… and no relationship, according to me, can ever survive on pretence!
Can you ever say that your love for your spouse never changed from Day 1? At least I can’t! How can it not?! According to me, even if you’re dating a person for several years, things do change after marriage. Its only after marriage that you really get to know a person. And its a gradual process… its not like you get an orientation session with your partner one day and you know him! You always keep knowing new things about each other. And after a certain level, you may feel that he/she is the wrong person… he/she being the same person whom you were so in love with sometime back. Or it can be the other way round as well. But it can’t be constant…I don’t buy that!
Bottom line remains the same – If, in a relationship, you do something just because its a rule set by someone and because you have to do it, its not real. You’re not being your own self. And as I said earlier… no relationship can ever survive on pretence… how long can you be what you’re not?! How long can you hold hands in front of your neighbours if you don’t even want to see each other’s face otherwise?
So my take here is that its important to be YOU!
as i said, the writer as well didnt intend at all to endorse the monotonous tone of things as set out millennia ago by god knows who. on the contrary, it was in fact his way of coming back at them.
yes, agree with you; we evolve and relationships do as well.
“Yes, the rules used to be those…till sometime back. But not anymore. ”
It is too much of an assumption that we dont follow rules set by society or dont live the institutions merely because someone somewhere at some point in prehistoric time decided that this is how it should be. We do follow them!
Thats why humans ended up adopting this pattern of life (i.e. one man, one woman or the other way around), which is so not us, which is so not the way we are programmed naturally, and which is certainly not the way nature wanted us to be!
so when we are in these institutions called marriage or living in relationships or whatever name you give it, we are knowingly or unknowingly following the rules set by someone millennia ago, just like the rocket scientists following the same track size set by romans!
but then, like Juan Bardim says in woody allen´s vicky cristina barcelona, `life is so meaningless. dont tell me that true love makes life meaningful. because love is so transient. so the point is to relish life, in its entirety, every moment of it.’
ofcourse someone should tell woody allen that u can do this only if either u have the balls to follow an alternative way of life or you have gone “insane” (as in the internationally accepted meaning of the word!)
how many of us have got´em?