Assumptions

We are all, I think, a little bit crazy. We live our lives based on assumptions and insubstantial whims and hopes. We think that everything will always be as it is; we take no thought when we do everyday things that it may be the last time we ever do them.

We get up in the morning and we leave for work and assume we will return home again that evening. We leave on business trips and assume we’ll return when our work is done. We leave our loved ones, our children, our best friends, assuming we will see them again. We become complacent in our assumptions – yet our individual worlds are as insubstantial as the clouds which float over our heads; and as fleeting as a precious summer day.

We assume we’ll see the sunrise tomorrow morning. We assume we’ll be home for dinner tonight. We assume our children will grow up and have families of their own. We assume we will retire and we will die someday having lived a full and fruitful life. We assume even that tomorrow will come and it will be the way we want it to be. That it will be the natural continuation of today. One day into the next day and into the next one – the perfect, flowing river of life – everything flowing smoothly – assuming that everything good will come our way – and that bad and sad things only happen to others. Until they happen to us, of course.

But there are some who – in nature’s attempt to bring balance to life, I guess – assume that every day will bring a new tragedy, a new disappointment, a new calamity. But even these forlorn people assume that there will be a tomorrow, they will get up in the morning. They may live in trepidation over what the dawn may bring, but they assume the dawn will come nevertheless.

Whether we are the kind of person who assumes the best, or the kind of person who assumes the worst, every one of us live a life of assumptions. Life is a series of assumptions, seasoned with hopes and dreams, or fears and worries – or all of these – stirred into a odd porridge of individual lives, and subtly weaved by the hand of chance into a tapestry of society. A society driven by the assumptions every one of us makes. Society reflects our assumptions, as well as our desires and needs. As we change as individuals it is reflected in the fabric of society; the society we all help weave and in which we all must live.

We are foolish in our assumptions, yet without them we could not live – or even function. We assume that those who love us today will love us tomorrow and the next day – and the next month and the next year. Time gets lost in the assumptions and we are surprised when our assumptions lead us astray.

We are crazy and we are foolish yet this is the way we were meant to be. Living life on the wings of assumptions – wings gilded with hope and dreams, and restrained by fear. We can only assume that what is true today will be true tomorrow; sometimes the truth of today can be twisted like ornamental iron into shadows of the lies of tomorrow.

Hold on to what you believe, and assume that tomorrow will bring better things than today. Assume the best and prepare for the worst. The world is both a beautiful and ugly place. It is full of people all living their lives based on assumptions. People who assume and dream and hope and then die. And there are people too who live only to steal your dreams, kill your hopes and destroy your assumptions. And you will never know, for sure, who those people are. We all wear masks, and no one is real. Yet it is also true that everything you can imagine is real. So imagine beautiful things. Assume that great things will happen. Assume tomorrow will come. If it doesn’t, will it even matter?

Assume then that the love you feel today will be stronger and deeper tomorrow. To assume otherwise is to destroy today. Remember that your love will always outlive you; love always outlives us. And the greatest truth of all is that love is the only truth.