"You can't be wise and in love at the same time" - Bob Dylan

It's true. You can't. The very notion of being wise negates all we have ever learned about how love makes you feel. There is a cynicism that comes with it. A mindset that drags 'movie-love' kicking and screaming into the real world and stamps a big 'Doesn't Happen' mark on it. That is not to say that all realists are wise, but the aspects of love that make people want to love in the first place do not go hand in hand with the realist view. It is an ideal that people yearn for. Why be wise about love anyway? Does that not take the fun out of it? The whirlwind of emotions that we are promised comes with love: would it not be better to just fly with it, rather than step back and rationalise and question and worry about and a hundred million things that could nullify that feeling? Of course the realist's argument is always strong - you hear more stories about the failure of a relationship. The failure of said relationship gets questioned, answers are given, and a summation is summised. This conclusion adds ammunition to the realists' argument arsenal, and is embodied in one word: experience. Experience makes people wise. So how can a wise person be in love? Truly in love? Well I like to think that a wise person would be wise enough to know that no one has 'experience' in what lies ahead. We are all hurtling towards futures which will no doubt shape our views on the world, in the same way that our pasts have shaped who we are now. I say to those who are wise, next week you could fall madly, deeply in love - your world could be turned upside down and back again, and for all your 'experience' you will not know what hit you. And you will be converted. And you may never be wise again.

Alan