The Law of Equivalent Trade

I have, for a couple of weeks now, been doing a movie marathon of the Full Metal Alchemist -- arguably one of the greatest animes of all time (or at least, that I have ever seen. Sorry Ichigo and Naruto). The story revolves on the concept of Equivalent Trade, where one could not gain anything without sacrificing something of equivalent value. It is an absolute concept, an ultimate law that binds all aspects of alchemy. To create something, you need a source for it, using alchemy to transform one thing to another. Of course this was not meticulusly observed in the series -- the fight scenes would have been very boring had they been transformed into a physics tutorial. There was a twist however, that being the Law of Equivalent Trade may be disregarded through the use of the Philosopher's Stone -- an object of an almost infinite source of power where the normal rules of alchemy are bent and twisted. In the end however, it was realized that even the Philosopher's stone observe the Law of Equivalent Trade, due to the fact that to create the stone a great price is needed to be paid.

The story of the anime was really capturing, a true metaphor of our perpetual engagement of our daily lives. Everyday we make countless "trades", pursuing one thing while sacrificing another, regardless of whether this fact is something we have noticed or not. Everyday, when I choose to eat more than I am morally entitled to, I gain a subjectively good amount of "happiness" and satisfaction in exchange for the oppurtunity to be healthy. When I choose to daydream, I exchange a good amount of what could have been productive time to countless enjoyable moments of pure fantasy. I have sacrificed my future oppurtunity to be a great movie star and a matinee idol in exchange for a really juicy medium rare 100% angus beef which I am not sure of whether it is infected with mad cow disease or not. These are the choices I made, the trades I bargained, for which I am now in deep misery...an equivalent trade for the pleasures that I have gained.

There is a limit to everything. Though I think that the limit varies from person to person, this fact is absolute. There is a limit to happiness and sadness, riches and poverty, fame and shame. It is how we manipulate them that determines our happiness, or at the very least our satisfaction. In order to be happy somehow you need to be sad, through sacrifice...and to show off your ability to handle your sadness to girls...which of course once they notice they will come to soothe your pain and ease all the misery that you've been in (heheh...works for me all the time, except that the girls are usually either middle-aged guidance counselors or very scary HR personnels)

When I was young, I endured much pain and suffering that can be caused by poverty. God it is so hard to get a girl to like you as more than a friend when she is doing charity for you too (charity in grade school and high school meant lending me her books, giving me paper during tests, and sharing me her unfinished Coke -- thank God she was onto the diet craze early in life). I told myself that I will do whatever I can in my power to never be able to go back the situation that I was in.

But now I realize, unless I want to live a life of complete mediocrity I really am someday gonna be poor again. Some people would argue that it all depends on your planning, but then I answer that life is full of unplanned events -- wars happen (damn it Iran and North Korea!), landslides occur, grandchildren appearing out of nowhere. And I would need a good amount of money for my gastric bypass sugery by the time I am 40. Plus the viagra supplements I would need once I am 90 (hell yeah I still plan to have sex at that age!).

Well anyways, I was merely tranforming my idle time into a non-sensical blog. Have to go to lunch. God, I really need to stop eating much. I am trading the girl of my dreams for a fat juicy pig.