Evelyn: Don't worry about 'why' when 'what' is right in front of you. (The Shape of Things)

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

maybe I thought you weren't like everybody else

He and She. He takes her home. They talk and get ready to part for the evening.
He says, then she, etc:
- i had a really good time tonight
- yeah, i did too!
- here.
- what's that?
- my share of the dinner.


- no, no, no. look, i'm the one who asked you out, and it wouldn't be an official date if i wouldn't pay.
- well how about i flip you for it?
- no, i'm sorry.
- come on, you're afraid you'll lose!
- no, you are unbelievable...
- (joking around) you're terrified, you're shaking.
- oh, alright. heads...
- (flips coin, falls heads) you lose.
- let me see that.
- no.
- let me see that...
- no!
- let me see that!
(grabs coin)
- that's two tails, you cheated!
- no, i didn't. i gave you the option, you chose heads.
- 84% of the time everyone's gonna say heads when asked.
- well maybe i thought you weren't like everybody else.
- maybe you're right. i'll see you.
- i'll raise you.
- what?
- it's just something i used to say to my dad.
- good night.
- good night. sweet dreams.

(movie "All in", 2006)

I won't say anything. I'll just add another quote. But if you'll comment, I'll reply.

"It will have been noticed that, in this philosophy, there reigns an alternative: the encounter may not take place, just as it may take place. Nothing determines, no principle of decision determines this alternative in advance; it is of the order of a game of dice. 'A throw of the dice will never abolish chance.' Indeed! A successful encounter, one that is not brief, but lasts, never guarantees that it will continue to last tomorrow rather than come undone. Just as it might not have taken place, it may no longer take place: 'fortune comes and changes', affirms Borgia, who succeeded at everything until the famous day he was stricken with fever. In other words, nothing guarantees that the reality of the accomplished fact is the guarantee of its durability. Quite the opposite is true: every accomplished fact, even an election, like all the necessity and reason we can derive from it, is only a provisional encounter, and since every encounter is provisional even when it lasts, there is no eternity in the 'laws' of any world or any state. History her is nothing but the permanent revocation of the accomplished fact by another undecipherable fact to be accomplished, without our knowing in advance whether, or when, or how the event that revokes it will come about. Simply, one day new hands will have to be dealt out, and the dice thrown again on the empty table."
- Louis Althusser, "Philosophy of the Encounter"

Question: What if love was this way, what if everything that happens is just... chance?

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