The Lost Art Of Love
Has it ever happened to you? Your knees going weak, words getting stuck at the end of your throat, a nervous giggle filling up your face and you thinking to yourself “what the hell is happening to me?”. Most of us at some point in our lives have felt some of that (if not all of it at the same time) in the presence of ‘someone’. Or we might have had that effect on someone else (who knows!). These expressions are mostly involuntary reactions. We don’t really have any control over how a glimpse of that ‘someone’ will make us react the next time or the time after that.
Most of us ‘grown-ups’ stop believing in these reactions over time. We believe these are childish or even worse, discount these as the effect of media (mainly movies) and manifestations of what we see. Recently a friend of mine started dating a guy, whom she knew only a little. When I say little, it was only for 48 hours that she had known him before getting into a relationship. Both of them feel stupid, reckless and even guilty for a hasty decision but also accept that no matter how wrong, it feels right. Their hesitation isn’t because they are unsure, it is because they are sure that the people around them (people who mattered) would call them crazy for being so impulsive.
The feeling of love is an impulse. They say it takes 4–5 secs for someone to fall in love. It’s an instinct, it doesn’t require a statistical, genetical or racial analysis. Rather it does’t take in consideration any of those. We all feel love for the first time through unexplainable reactions in our minds and body but over time these impulses go numb. We deny ourselves from feeling these emotions and slowly but steadily these become a part of our past. I am not saying we shy away from romance but we add the element of pragmatism to it. What works, what sounds right, what fits into our already planned, structured lives — these become the aspects of consideration before we start considering the feelings. Any of these don’t fall in place and we logically abandon our feelings of love for someone convincing ourselves that he/she is the wrong person.
It is true that along with strong feelings of love we have all faced heartbreak. After the first heartbreak we make list of things we will never do or subject ourselves to, ever again. We start shielding ourselves from the pain and hurt. In the process we forget how beautiful it felt till right before that hurt. Even that pain and hurt has a bitter sweet taste, is why we take so much time to let go of that pain. We harbour that pain with music, mementos and sometimes excessive amounts of food/alcohol or both. By the time the hurt and pain fades away we secretly start craving for the whole process again hoping this time it will last a lifetime but like everything else we want a guarantee card attached to the love we feel for someone in exchange of nothing. It doesn’t work that way. It’s not a product manufactured in a factory for consumption. It’s a human emotion that makes life worth living.
Having someone beside you through all ups and downs of life, is the kind of guarantee that love provides. But that value can only be earned through time and effort. We can’t expect to reap the fruits of love without watering and nurturing it with both our hands. A life as mechanical as ours can only find some peace and solace in love — love that we see for ourselves in someone’s eyes or feel for someone else. That one fuzzy feeling keeps our blood warm on a cold winter night and us humans. I understand it’s not a bed of roses or walk on the clouds but once we go past the hardships, it’s the most wonderful thought or concept — growing old with someone.
These ideas and concepts, like I said earlier, have become the thing of the past. We ought to bring back the love into our lives, especially now. This writer does not wish to promote recklessness but when you have the real deal, don’t sit with a calculator to check how it benefits you, it’s not a balance sheet. This kind of deal is once in a lifetime chance of happiness, grab it and preserve it.
We all apply the concept of perseverance to our professional lives. Rather without the will and the skill to fight the odds, success might be elusive. Why do we apply the same concept to our personal life as well? Why do we fall out of passion or patience in our personal life? Why do we expect someone to understand everything without us uttering a single word when we experience how opaque our daily lives make us to each other’s emotions and situations? Why do we forget to extend some empathy and consideration to the one that we love so much when we do that for acquaintances and strangers everyday. Like a promotion in designation love also changes levels but it is often misunderstood as being dead. It only elevates itself to a place where it is stable and peaceful. To a place you don’t really need to say that you love that person everyday because it becomes a universal truth. Like career goals, we should keep reminding ourselves of that peaceful place in our personal lives so that we never give up and be persistent.
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