INEVITABILITY

I'm in Gilleleje this weekend, a summer resort in the north of Denmark. This morning it rains. A soft rain that makes all the pine trees in the garden look bigger. I sit on the swing and let the drops envelop my face. My nephew, Paul, knows that this is the moment. When to ask me metaphysical questions. He begins, however, with a concrete approach: “what relaxes you?” he wants to know “—and don't say Norway.” I say Norway. He doesn't ask me why, because he knows already, so we don't waste time on that. But I tell him that doing nothing in Norway entices me to think of how, for the most part our choices are both arbitrary and inevitable. This also means that we don't always rationalize what feels right. It's like family relations: they are also both arbitrary and inevitable. Which also means that I'm saying enough already. “So,” Paul goes, “this means then, that we should never resist what feels right, even though we often have to match people's saying that we also have to do right by them.” More rain is falling, yet neither of us is going inside.