That's a touching story, and it illustrates something I've been thinking about recently: that we're not as "rational" as we think we are, to a certain extent, because all of our current rationality depends on everything that has happened, not everything that will happen in the future.

Paul Dirac, an absolutely brilliant man, decided early on that his life "was mainly concerned with facts and not feelings." In a sense he planned his life out with imperfect information--as we all do--until something came along and completely turned his life around, in this case his future wife.

I think that's a hopeful message? That your life and your thoughts are limited by all that has happened to you, not by what hasn't happened to you yet, by definition, because you can't imagine a future that hasn't happened to you. I know, anecdotally, a handful of people who swore off marriage in their 20s, only to turn right around and get married in their 30s after meeting somebody who changed their minds. The same is true for academics and, really, everything--a student who resigns himself to hating math until he finds a teacher who understands his feelings, etc.

Or maybe it's late and I'm rambling. Either way, I really enjoyed reading this essay.