“If you run a simulation and do a proper calculation, you’ll find that Mercury, and not Venus or Mars, is Earth’s closest neighbor on average (and spends more time as Earth’s closest neighbor than any other planet).”
While Mercury’s neighborly average wins over time, Venus occasionally bests, saddling up alongside the Earth as the brilliant sister-planet. But in order to achieve that loving proximity, it also — and it must — delve much further and deeper beyond the Sun, beyond Mercury, beyond reach. To get so close it must also travel so far away.
To understand home, one must journey to a distant elsewhere.
Is proximity briefly met — or in greatest duration — the strongest measure of love?