Love is not an activity but an experience. It doesn’t have a start and hence no end. It doesn’t arrive; doesn’t leave. It just lingers. How can we ever define it? If only we could contain it somewhere we could analyze it, but it is far from being contained, it escapes through us before we even know it. We do not tell ourselves, we should love something or someone, it just happens, just like we never tell ourselves explicitly that we should love our parents. It comes naturally and irrationally. The more we give in love, the more we experience the taste of freedom. And who would not want to be free? It can never bind us in a way that harms us; it is just too irrational for its own good. When our parents tell us not to do something, it comes out of their love, they do not see anything else than our happiness, everything else takes a back seat for them.
Love, to its misfortune, is grossly misconstrued as mere attraction. It is beyond mere attraction; beyond mere longing, far far away from any kind of orthodox prisons or contemporary confinements. It is insulated from the rules and self serving principles (principles, really?) of society trying to malign it. It is the attainment of the state of peace which is far greater than happiness. It is pristine. It is simple. As Tagore said - Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom. One can kill the manifestation of love but love, in itself, is immortal. Another aspect of love is that it is intensely personal. Others cannot dilute it by force, by cajoling or by commonly used weapon of mass destruction viz. emotional blackmail ;)
Love is passion! Love is impulsive! Love knows no bounds! But then its real, its passion is real. Try telling a couple that their story is not possible, they might agree with us, but then we will still see them together the very next day. Everything seems possible when we love someone, weirdest ideas become the basis of expressions, and time loses its meaning! It stops for the two souls who are oblivious to the world; the world stops by to see them! When we love someone/something passionately, the observer and the observed are the same things. There is no struggle. It is freedom in entirety. That is the beauty of understanding between two souls. When both want the same things, does it matter who contributes more and who less? We are at loss to explain why we do certain things for somebody. We fall short of expressions. That’s when we start realizing what is peace and still be restless. Mind is full of peace while the heart is lit up like never before!
Love never has conditions and bounds. It liberates the mind, makes us strong. It gives us the strength to handle the worst and also makes us dream the best. It is a ray of hope to a person who is passionately involved with someone/something. A scientist who loves his ideas tries again and again even after uncertain results. He chases the idea with a belief so strong that he can break the conventional patterns and traditions. Great love involves great risks! But it becomes hard to realize it’s a risk when a person is truly in love. The confidence that love gives goes a long way in one’s life, though the goal may never be achieved but the experience is worth after all! When everything revolves around one thing we love, be it a person, an idea or our work, all other events just arrange themselves around it. It is just that idea on our mind that rejuvenates us every instant! The idea becomes a passionately lit fire that goes out to light the whole world. This is the beauty of love, even though the world may oppose the idea and condemn it, but it lights the whole world. It gives unconditionally.
Let’s take a time machine and travel few decades back into the past. We can observe that in earlier days there was very less social interaction, few choices, closed culture, less diversity in an individual’s activities among others. Fast forward to the present. We see that the society is more progressive, more individualistic. Every generation is more active and open minded than the previous. There is heightened social interaction and a better understanding of who I am and what I seek. This has added newer dimensions to love transgressing the older ideals. Today we love so many aspects of a person than mere physical look, familial background or material wealth. The whole sum total is the manifestation of love as we know it today. An individual back then was like a puppet with strings attached and was controlled by others. In some cases, others had greater control over his/her life than that individual. We see that today the strings are getting snapped. When they snap, we either parachute ourselves safely to the ground or fall foul on the ground *thud!!!* and hurt ourselves.
The idea of love as discussed till now is not confined to two people. It is between two entities. Now these two entities could be two persons or a person and his passion/hobby or a person and an idea or a person and his/her life; it could be between anything. The greatest inventions and discoveries of the world is the result of the undying love between the inventor and his idea. The love between a mother and her child blossoms even before the birth of the baby. The qualities of the love discussed above apply equally to every relationship. And the factors trying to malign the love equally apply as well. As Charles Darwin said - It is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. It is important to recognize the change churning under the seabed of the society and preserve this essence of life called love in its entirety.
Let us love our life, love the myriad experiences
Love people as they are, love the differences.
