Practicalities and the Moment

The question of how much time and effort we ought to give over to feasible, (social) norm-aligning commitments which look rewarding in the long term, versus ones which are passionate and highly gratifying (feverish, even) in the short-term but looks hardly maintainable in the foreseeable future, manifests itself as a recurring motif in many human lives. While initially the former may seem obvious to be the wiser choice, reality rarely presents its questions and dilemmas in such a simple form. Although we have a natural inclination to look forward into the future, and hence that it would seem natural to seek long-term stability and security, we may sometimes be confronted by the fact that life is indeed very short, and that there is always scarcely enough time to spend on what one is madly passionate about. If our lives are essentially constituted of our memories of moments (of happiness, or banal survival) in our lives with a continuous stream of moments extending into the present, then ought we not make sure that each of these moments are meaningful, unforgettable, and well-lived? After all, the past and the present does come in much greater certainty than the future. Seize the day, and the moments that you have seized will be unchangeable and yours forever, assuming that your memory and sanity remains intact.  

Das versteht ihr alle nicht, ha ha! 

Yet if all of this was so elegantly simple, then no original dilemma would have existed in the first place; if the choice between practicality and seizing the moment was so easy, then as a recurring motif in life, this would be a motif no more significant than the mechanical routine of breathing, eating and sleeping. Humans have an innate psychological will which drives them to achieve stability, to settle, and to construct something permanent (be it a relationship, ideas, or physical things). To do this, one must indeed look farther into the future, and avoid being distracted by the short-lived glitter that tempts you from the side. 'Temptation' is merely a derogatory label, and whether something is a temptation is already decided by your own opinion of the whole matter. Whether ignoring the 'glitter' is the right choice, of course, depends on what is the source of the will that drives you to action. In other words, what you truly value (or strongly care about) will ultimately determine what perspective you adopt, or what reasons you would (be inclined to) offer to justify your actions. 

If what glitters on the side can so easily be dismissed as a mere delusion, or something of no particular value, then perhaps it does psychologically reflect that -- for you -- it is not a moment worth seizing. 

Storm(s)

Sometimes, certain events and relationships in life can really catch you off guard, and threaten to dismantle the entire set of beliefs and values that you once depended on for survival. Such events and relationships affect us emotionally, and attack us where we are most vulnerable: no human made of flesh and blood who is male or female, intelligent or brute, wealthy or poor, idealist or pragmatic, is impenetrable at his or her heart. The heart represents the set of things that we value or care about the most. We do not need to be conscious of what we value to actually care about things: deprive a man of something that you suspect he loves and offer him no prospect of getting it back, and if he does indeed value it, you will subsequently see that you have also deprived him of his vitality, his appetite, his sleep, his control over his facial expressions, and his meaning to live. By attacking his heart, you plunge the man into a state of emotional excess, and if that doesn't generate extreme sadness, then you may yield extreme hatred, or anger. If you are tempted to think that such extreme emotions only exist on an abstract, conceptual level, reconsider; emotions generate real physiological effects, and in the case of extreme emotions, the physiological effects produced by those emotions can be absolutely crippling.

And when these events and relationships hit us, or when we know that such things are about to turn our lives upside-down, there are few things that one can do. Like knowing that a violent storm is coming straight at you and you have no place to shelter yourself, the only thing to do is to brave the storm; or face the music, so to speak. Under these circumstances, there are only two roads that one can take: stand strong in the face of rain and wind - at least a last attempt, struggle at survival -  or perish quietly and insignificantly.