The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics

I want to share with you something that I discovered today and that impressed me a lot. "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics" is an animated short film directed and produced by the legendary Chuck Jones - who directed, among others, the cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, Silvester etc. The 10 minute film tells a universal love story depicted in a very original way. The girl and the boy, the classical romantic characters, are replaced here with a (red) dot and a (blue) line.

The line, a rigid but affectionate character, falls in love with the spontaneous and exhilarating dot. The latter, however, finds the line to be boring and conventional and directs her attention towards a wild squiggle. The line, feeling motivated to do anything in his powers to win the dot's heart, overcomes his own limitations and, at the end of a painfully struggling period of time, learns how to bend and turn himself himself into an infinite number of geometric shapes. Now he is able to become whatever the dot dreams of, achieving an extreme level of complexity that draws the dot's attention. The dot finally understands that the squiggle's flexibility doesn't come from its open-mindedness and imagination, but from a mere chaotic behaviour, whereas, the various shapes of the line are a product of a voluntary act of creation and love. Ultimately, the dot falls in love with the romantic tender line and, we hope, they live happily ever-after.

This beautiful love story raised me one more time the following dilemma:
Is love dependent of the loved object, or is it something dependent only of the person who experiences love?

Put in other words: is true love dependent of the behaviour of the loved one? I mean, is it really love when I say: "I love him because he's so good to me", or is it love only when I say: "I don't know why I love him. I love him because I can't help not loving him, even if the feelings are not reciprocated."?

I haven't decided yet on this matter but I tend to believe in the second version. Anyway, I think this is something worth pondering over.

I leave you with the animated film that inspired this article. I hope this will bring a smile on your face. :-)