"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 :)
Loved what you wrote :) Just adding to your thoughts, in today's world of 'Life Imitates Art' instead of the other way round, the whole concept of 'true love' that is presented and interpreted by us in our formative years is one of the major reasons of the indelible ache marks on our heart. If only Cinderalla went on to say what happens after the 'happily ever after', maybe our minds would be more conditioned to accept and make peace with the real-life princes. Having said that, is 'true love' an entirely utopian concept, we'll I don't think so. I think it is an acceptance of the fact that no matter who us on the other end, it will require monumental efforts to keep it going. We just need to find the flaws that we can unobtrusively accept in our lives. Maybe that way the everlasting conquest of finding our soul mate will have an end. Am I sure if I can spend the rest of my life with one person? Well, that's a blind leap of faith we will all take at some point of time. If it doesn't work out, then as you said... It's not the end :)
Interesting one but nothing new. There's nothing wrong in exploring until you get what you wish for.
Anyways read couple of your blogs- you were a believer, hope you still are! Somehow that seems to missing here. Don't let the flame of hope extinguish so soon!
Ps: Not a stalker but yes willing to know more :D
Very practically written.
Keep them coming.
I am not sure whether I should build up my exceptions and then get disappointed. I don't mind the true love coming my way but I really don't want to live in a fool's paradise either :)
True that Gar-ji madam :*
Nicely written. As an afterthought for me though, as a child i took on to reading quite early I must say, and Fairy Tales were the most lucrative paperbacks and amazingly easy to read stories for a 6-7 yr old ! I set my thought process for a long (really long!) period of time based on virtues of so called princes, notwithstanding all the Dickens and Twains and victorian classics that further conditioned my manner of speaking and attitude, and the consequential hope of "true love" kept me waiting for the entire time! And as I started nearing the magical age of "30", and when nothing in life (in job and personal life) turned out the way i thought it would be (in fact kept getting worse!), and I was struck by the realities of "have your fun" wala funda as shared by your blog and as I could see all around me, I so much wished I had NOT read all those hundreds of books that created the "Illusion" in me of concepts like "being good" (now I understand what Sallu Bhai meant by "Being Human" :D ), and made me loose so much of opportunities that life had to offer. I really wishes then that such Fairy Tales and silly Victorian books should be banned from face of the earth as they were creating "Optical Illusion" like the Sharukh Khan's Raj in fragile minds! But now, two years henceforth and having seen 'little more' of life, I again think that all of us perhaps need such Illusions, as they create amazing hopes and light around the corner wala feeling, make you smile, and give one cute butterflies at times!
Yours Ubiquitously,
Satya