All

When wine, water withers to,
Numbness naught will hold.
And all the pain that you eschew
Cannot but help unfold.

That inner world in which you live,
So much held at bay.
It's flood doors bend before they give
And all is swept away.

As tides rush in and out again,
Will you heed their tow?
See all emotions wax and wane
When still, they fail to grow?

So all may come, and all will pass.
That, you cannot fake.
When all begins to fade at last,
Which road will you take?

'Tis it?

"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

Since these two states are mutually exclusive how would anyone ever test such a proposition?