A Quantum of Solace

A few years ago, I was in a really bad relationship. That year was a James Bond year, and the movie that came out that year, was Quantum of Solace. I rather like that movie. In it, Bond is seeking a peace with the world after the girl that he loved, betrayed him. It's a story of overcoming loss over someone you really cared about, but then later sold you out.

Yeah, I was at the end of that kind of a relationship, and I didn't take it very well. I hated everything with the world, and was in a Quantum of Solace at zero. One thing that people don't get when I say that, is what a quantum of solace is.

Here's what it means, taken from the original story that Ian Fleming wrote, "Quantum of Solace"

Quantum of Solace is the title of a story published in For Your Eyes Only in which James Bond plays a very small part. Bond is attending a dinner party hosted by the Governor for The Bahamas at the end of a week in Nassau before leaving for Miami, in which he feels completely out of place. Once the other guests have left, Bond and the Governor and make small talk to pass the hour or so before Bond feels he can also depart. When he makes a remark about wanting to marry an air hostess, the Governor proceeds to tell a story that he says Bond may find interesting. 

The Governor’s story is about a man who meets and marries an air hostess after meeting her on a flight. However, after a posting to Bermuda their marriage began to unravel and when he finally leaves his wife, he makes sure he does everything possible to destroy her life. The story ends with the Governor telling Bond that a relationship “can survive anything so long as some kind of basic humanity exists between the two people” and that all kinds of obstacles can be overcome in a relationship, but not “the death of common humanity in one of the partners”. 

He rather pretentiously calls this the “Quantum of Solace” – or as Bond explains it – “the amount of comfort… When the other person not only makes you feel insecure but actually seems to want to destroy you, it’s obviously the end. The Quantum of Solace stands at zero.”