Edge.org gave the following question to its contributors:
What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it ?
They collected 120 answers, a very diverse and interesting read. My favorite answer so far is from Kai Krause stating he believes that the "Vorfreude" for an experience or a moment and the memory afterwards of that experience/moment is more enjoyable than the experience/moment itself.
Nothing ever is as beautiful as its abstraction through the rose-colored glasses of anticipation...The toddlers hope for Santa Claus on Christmas eve turns out to be a fat guy with a fashion issue. Waiting for the first kiss can give you waves of emotional shivers up your spine, but when it then actually happens, it's a bunch of molecules colliding, a bit of a mess, really. It is not the real moment that matters. In Anticipation the moment will be glorified by innocence, not knowing yet. In Remembrance the moment will be sanctified by memory filters, not knowing any more.
His advice:
Bluntly put: spend your life in the eternal bliss of always having something to hope for, something to wait for, plans not realized, dreams not come true.... Make sure you have new points on the horizon, that you purposely create. And at the same time, relive your memories, uphold and cherish them, keep them alive and share them, talk about them. Make plans and take pictures.
An interesting twist on this is something I believe is also true (and I cannot prove): the anticipation of the everyday routines of dealing with life's mere mechanics creates procrastinators (like me, I'm speaking from experience here).
