"People don’t like love, they like that flittery flirty feeling. They don’t love love - love is sacrificial, love is ferocious, it’s not emotive. Our culture doesn’t love love, it loves the idea of love. It wants the emotion without paying anything for it. It’s ridiculous." —Matt Chandler
Shah Rukh Khan made all the 90s kids believe in the magic of love and damaged their brains for eternity. But now, as an adult, I know better. I know that Raj was an optical illusion. I know that love is this undefined, bizarre, complex emotion that no one can put into words.
We have all been conditioned to believe in the comfortable concept of love. But with each passing day, I see its significance fade away piece by piece. I used to be a firm believer of love and other drugs. This very belief of mine is now just a fictional entity.
Hoping for a soulmate in our world is like a mirage of the oasis. Virtues like loyalty, integrity, honesty have lost its meaning and all we are left with is treachery, dishonesty and greed.
With more options comes more difficulties. Everyone around is viable and available, so why would anyone go and do the right thing.
In the past, things were simpler. Get a twig and brush your teeth. Now, there’s a host of complexities involved. Go to a supermarket. Choose between a colgate, a pepsodent, a sensodyne, a close up or a cibaca. Each, a viable option. Each would solve your purpose. So, would you ever stick to a particular brand for years at a stretch ?
We don’t. We yearn for a change. We need variety. We desire more options. We feel inquisitive. We want to ‘explore’.
When we cannot stick to a particular toothpaste for the rest of our lives, is it even possible to pin down a soulmate and stick to them for eternity inspite of the viable options out there ? Is it possible for a person to be content with a single person for the rest of their lives ?
Human needs are satiable but human greed is insatiable. I always thought that every person deep down yearns for stability and when you have that one person, it’s good enough. But the stories I witness, the people I meet have different tales to tell. Everyone’s interested in having their share of ‘fun’ while they are at it and get back to their routine lives. Human wants vary. You want someone for companionship. You want someone as a friend. You want someone to be intimate with. You want someone to be a shoulder to cry on. You want someone for the conversations. And all these someones might be different people altogether.
True love happens only in the Nicholas Sparks novels while we mortals need to deal with the real thing. Love, even as a concept, has lost its meaning. And in these dark times, if you do find someone to love and be loved back, preserve them. It’s not the happy ending that counts, what happens after that is the more pertinent question.
Mere ramblings. No apologies :)
Mere ramblings. No apologies :)
