In the industry I am working in (physical trading of fuel oil), we often have to blend (mix) different grades/types of oil together before we can sell them.

Although there are several different categories of fuel oil, there are no two parcels of oil that are 100% similar. Every parcel of oil is different. (Sounds like humans? There are so many “types” of guys and gals, yet no two guys or girls can be 100.00% alike)

Also, no matter how well we did our calculations on paper, we can never confirm how the outcome of the blended oil will be, unless we get our hands dirty and do a “hand-blend”; which means taking small bits of representative samples from each oil, to do a test-blend, to see if these test samples can mix well.

The idea here is that: mixing two grades of good oil doesn’t mean that we will get a good grade of blended oil. Similarly, it doesn’t mean that mixing two grades of “bad” oil will give us a bad outcome. It all depends on the “compatibility” of the oils, and of course, what kind of blended oil do we want.

Regardless of how well the theoretical results may appear to be, if the two oils are tested to be really incompatible, they are incompatible. No meaningful outcome can be created from this blend.

Isn’t this just like human relationships? Two good people doesn’t necessarily make a good couple, and neither can we say that two bad people cannot make a good couple. It all depends on the compatibility (chemistry, character, etc) of the two people.

No matter how matching two person’s character may be, or how compatible they seemed to be, nobody will know whether they can make a good couple until they become a couple. (Do a test-blend)

Here’s another catch: having a good test-blend result does not definitely mean that the real blend results will be good. For oil, it could be due to sampling error; where the samples used for the test is not representative/reflective of the oil its suppose to represent.

For humans, this means that during the test-blend (two humans in a relationship), at least one of the parties is not behaving according to his/her true character (non-representative sample). Hence, although two people may seem to make a good couple at start, it does not mean that their relationship won’t turn sour later when their true character is slowly revealed (to be incompatible).

So what can be done?
The parties can either try to change themselves (for oil, it means adding addictives) so that the outcome can still be good, or they have to undo the blend since no meaningful outcome can result from the incompatible blend. (Too bad we can’t really “unblend” an oil once its blended)

Yes. Because, like oil, if two people are incompatible, they are incompatible. No meaningful outcome can be achieved if they are still put together. While effort can be put in to try and salvage the relationship, or to make things work out, if the efforts are unable to eliminate the incompatibility, the outcome will still not be good.

Turning a blind eye to the incompatibility doesn’t help, because whether you see it or not, an incompatible blend is not a good blend. (Unless you are intentionally looking for a badly blended oil…)

Hence, in the (unfortunate) case of incompatibility, 勉强是没有幸福的，and perhaps, 懂得放弃 is the best way out for both parties?

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Relationship, Oil. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.