Playing with Fire

Life.  It’s tough.  My life was going pretty well, but sometimes you get blindsided, sometimes you face impossible situations, and sometimes you just have to pick those pieces back up.

And that’s what life is about.  Making mistakes. St. Augustine of Hippo said it best nearly 2000 years ago with ‘errare humanum est.‘  To err is human, and to be human is to make mistakes.  How else can we learn in our lives, how else can we navigate ourselves through our personal indirect journey.  And so is it OK to set ourselves up to those mistakes?  Is it OK, to proverbial play with fire?

It’s neurologically tied in the brain to have a reflex reaction whenever one touches fire.  The neurons quickly act and force you to remove the hand from the fire, it’s really the whole mechanism of pain in the body.  Pain exists to tell you to not do it again. So why then should one subject themselves to emotional pain, psychological distress, and proverbial ‘heartbreak?’  It’s an interesting question.  And perhaps nobody embodies this question more than Britney Spears.  Playing with her really is like playing with fire, and I keep that exact same picture of her above in my vision book to constantly remind myself of how every day, life is about playing with fire.

But is she really as exuberant, crazy, and unstable as the media suggests?  My perception of her permanently changed after reading Neil Strauss’s memoirs on his time as a ‘pick-up artist,’ called “The Game”, where he learned a more private, vulnerable, and real side of Britney Spears.  What’s behind the celebrity?  It’s always just a human trying to navigate their own lives.  But one two lives meet, sometimes there’s a problem.  The psychological individuals can be stable, but sociologically, sparks can fly.  The cavemen knew that all it took was two dull, ordinary rocks to be able to light a flame.

It's easy to understand why Britney Spears is so desirable

Enter Kevin Federline, nothing more than one of those dull rocks entering more than a potentially volatile situation.  I think he knew it best when he titled his first rap album “Playing with Fire.”  He got what every man desired: the hottest girl, the archetype for the innocent girl bad, the secret desire of every married man.  The entire world was jealous of the mere background dancer from rag turned to A-List celebrity boyfriend with riches.  But behind the scenes, I can’t imagine what he’s been through.  What seems to be happy and perfect, often has a dark side, and as the scene turned out, Spears became crazy (who can’t remember the shaving of the head incident), and through it all K-Fed gained full custody of the children, and proved that unlike Britney’s song “Piece of Me,” he really is the ‘exceptional father.’

Kevin Federline must have been through hell, but did playing with fire really pay off?  Well, look at where he is today.  He’s still a celebrity, making tonnes of money from the divorce to this day, and sure he’s struggling with his weight, but he wanted in the spotlight, and he got into the spotlight.  Perhaps their marriage was meant to fail since the start, and Federline just simply played his cards right to ensure his future success.  Being able to pin John Cena, the WWE champion at the time on Monday Night Raw really showed how much he had accomplished.

So what?  I think Federline was really able to pull all the negative energy: court battles, negative press, and all to really make a change in his life and gain from the relationship.  But sometimes I’m not even sure if I was the Federline of the relationship, as much as I wouldn’t like to admit it, I may have been more of the Spears.  Having it all and sacrificing it for a bit for what I thought was a real relationship, and then having to find that old me back through the ruins.

Maybe I listened to Spears a little too much.  I treat her song “Overprotected,” as a spiritual prophecy, I can never forget the lyric “I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am, and I don’t want to feel so damn protected.”  I hate that feeling of constraint, control, and oppression.  As cheesy as it sounds, I want to break free, and just do what I want regardless of what other people want or think.  I feel like this was part of the reason why I entered a relationship, simply put, I felt like it was what I wanted, but the exact reason in which the relationship fell apart, I wanted to do what I wanted, and at some philosophical point unwilling to compromise.

And now I listen to her song again to try to break free from those lingering feelings and bringing my life back together.  Yes it sucks, being broken up with sucks, especially when there was no tangible reason, but c’est la vie, que sera sera, and any other French expression about moving on that applies to this case.

But I still think, is it worth it to make mistakes.  Is it worth it to pursue passions while neglecting reason and sense?  Hearing about the controversy in Britain about the purported vaccine-autism link has simply disgusted me.  Simply, a head scientist published a flawed report about how the MMR-vaccine had a positive correlation to autism.  A completely false, and proven to be fabricated report, and it ended up causing outbreaks of measles and mumps once again from worried parents listening to faulty science (a completely preventable circumstance!).  What Dr. Wakefield did when publishing the report is absolutely deplorable.  He had a bias, a passion in preventing autism, and so he muddled reports to make his viewpoint prominent.  As a scientist, this is exactly what you cannot do in the world.

So why should I be allowed to make mistakes in my personal life?  If I am scientist through and through, I should be more cautious, and always use that scientific method to guide my thought process.  Or should I? I doubt Britney had any inkling of science when she was able to bounce back and produce her latest number: “Hold it against me.”  I doubt Kevin cared about anyone but himself and his children when he walked in his indirect path to success.  I also doubt my ex used any scientific grading scheme when she decided to end the relationship.  Simply, she had to fulfill her own individual prophecy.

Perhaps I am becoming more existential, where I must understand that the only person who gets me, trusts me, and understands my interests and passions is me.  As it is for every single other person out there.  And in this understanding, I need to take a fresh new look into what a relationship means, and moreso, if I am even ready to take that leap and be ready for that relationship.

It’s the scientist who knows how to play with fire best.