A thought-provoking comment; thanks for sharing it. There is a parallel with personal relationships. Some people churn through relationship after relationship,

A thought-provoking comment; thanks for sharing it. There is a parallel with personal relationships. Some people churn through relationship after relationship, always looking for a refresh on the exciting feeling of being with someone new and falling in love (or something like it). Others find a person and settle down into a long term relationship and are happy with it. Sure, the thrill of a new relationship goes away pretty quickly, but if you are lucky enough to find the right person, that is OK. As the relationship goes on, that shared history builds into its own beautiful thing. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I've thought about it this way. Studies show how unreliable memory is (see the Challenger disaster memory study [1]), and if a memory is only in my head, I can't be sure it happened that way, and ignoring that issue, it feels kind of like knowing a joke that I can't share with anyone. But with a long-term relationship, all those trivial things of your life are shared with someone else who gets the references and jokes and callbacks, and it makes it more real; it confirms that I really did live that memory, and you get more value out of it than if it is lives only in your own head. This might not make sense to younger people, but at 60 it is becoming relevant to me. Also, please don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying settle down for the sake of settling down. If you haven't found the right person, keep looking for them. [1] https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0128/Where-were-you-when-the-Challenger-exploded-Why-your-memory-might-be-wrong https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0128/Where-were-you-w...