Algorithm Biorhythms

I've apparently fallen into a pattern when clicking on stories at the New York Times website. Under the "Recommended for You" section, the first three are obits:

• Hedy Epstein, Rights Activist and Holocaust Survivor, dies at 91
• Suzanne Corkin, Who Helped Pinpoint Nature of Memory, dies at 79
• Marcus D. Gordon, Judge in 'Mississippi Burning' Case, Dies at 84

The fourth one is a guest piece by the grand thinker Alain de Botton:

• Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

I clicked on it.

Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully avoided investigating. 

***

Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for.

We all die alone.