My Journey in search of true emotions [Part 3] - Love
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While on this expedition, I've encountered many mixed emotions as a response to a single situation. But mixed emotions tend to mask the core one, deceiving your heart into feeling something else. The process of disintegrating these mixed feelings, finding and pointing out a single one is difficult, which sometimes books your ticket of a roller coaster ride. Sometimes, I ask myself about why it is important to understand every single emotion.? Let's not get into that, shall we ?
Let's be honest here, how many times have we ignored some feelings which we weren't meant to feel, and still heard them calling out, "Notice me Senpai..!"? Tried our hardest to suppress them? Flat out called our-self "Stupid" for feeling something like that.? You know deep down somewhere in that blood pumping machine, that you have already done it many a times. We feel the urge to be logical every time and ignore whatever falls out of that boundary. A cruel thing to do, Sensei.! Anyways, let's explore yet another prominent emotion.
3. Love
Love. A topic explored by many experts and here I am, an amateur guy trying to write an excerpt of a million paged book. Yes. We all know what this emotion is. We all have felt this prerogative emotion in one or the other way during our happening or monotonous horse ride of life. Statements we remember, using at some point,
"I love walking in the rain."
"I love the feeling of being desired."
"I love this scenery of nature, a butterfly flying nearby, what a beautiful pasture.!"
"I love him/her/that/this/and what not..!"
"I absolutely love Jennifer Lawrence.!" (That one's me.. :D )
"I love Lamborghini.!" (Yup, me.)
"I just LOVE video games.!" (Still me..)
This is our way of showing profound affection towards the livings or the nonliving. We have felt the butterflies flying in our stomach when we saw that special someone passing by us, or we have tried to capture the disseminating beauty in a box to keep it close by while we snuggle a pillow in our bed and force our mind to dream about him/her.
Let's traverse through the wide range of examples and try to comprehend the idea of this prestigious emotion.
A girl, a really good friend of mine. She told me once that she's in love with this boy with some really good talents, plus a guitar and a racing car (How cool is that, right?). Let's not go into those details as it's not my place to explore it. But she did something which intrigued me. She somehow got her hands on a paper print of that boy's hand, she cut down the paper from the outlines and kept it preciously close to her as if a relic. When I asked why, she simply responded, "So that I can hold it in my hand and feel like I'm holding his hand.."
This was a scaled down version of what we call "love". The emotion capable of nuking the whole world, capable of driving you crazy and make you do things which looked way beyond your capacity at first. This emotion is so powerful, it can act as the God who decides whether a creature will live or die.
Here is another intriguing story of a very close friend of mine, who placed roses on each desk of his office floor (Those were, like 300 roses) in early morning of the valentines day. He made sure nobody saw him while entering and leaving the office. When I asked the reason, he said,
"There's this girl, a beautiful girl I shall say. She has worked her magic on me and now I'm crazy about her. But I'm too afraid to ask her out. And last night, this thought came in that I wanted to give her a rose, but I can't give it to her personally, so I just placed roses on each desk, this way, she'll get my rose and nobody will even suspect because everyone will be getting one."
Extraordinary. That guy was an accurate example of shyness and introversion, and yet he was capable of doing something amazing. I asked him about what happened when she (let's say, A) got the rose, he replied,
"I went late. I explained my colleague about the whole scenario and asked her to keep an eye on A. I told her to observe A's each and every emotion and expression, and then replay them to me. I wanted to know what she felt, how she felt, reacted or what were her expressions at that moment."
And when I asked him that he could've done this by himself, he said,
"No man. I'm too shy to do that. Plus, I couldn't observe her as much as my colleague did. It would've been awkward if I stared at her that long in the name of observation."
Classic. Outstanding. Exemplary.
A few words to explain what I felt while looking into his eyes and understanding the hidden meaning behind his words. But the world of love is a parallel universe in itself. Love is subjective, possessing different meaning for different relationships.
I've seen how love places itself in the collection of emotions and assumes the driving seat sometimes. If you are earning 50K a month, and buying some 500$ stuff for the one you like, the case is that the driving factor is not love purely. But somehow, if you buy 150$ stuff for the girl you like when you could barely make a 100, the major factor driving you crazy tends to be love.
- When you buy a home for your family as soon as you start earning your own pennies, that affection towards your family is love.
- When a mother skips her own dinner so that her children can have full stomachs, that willpower to ignore hunger is love.
- When after a long and tedious day at work, you see your dog running towards you when you reach home, that smile on your face is love.
- After a long summer, when you experience and take a walk in the first rain, that sparkle in your eye is love.
- When your phone buzzes and you quickly check whether the other person replied or not, expect a message from them at every single second of the day, that unrestfullness is love.
- The face you see last before falling asleep, and see first thing in the morning after waking up, that relaxed feeling is love.
- When you travel thousands of miles, just to see someone's face for a few seconds, that determination is love.
- When you get ready to jump in a pot full of boiling chemicals without a second thought, that confidence is love.
In every language, there are songs which tried to explain what love is. One song which made me fall in love with it, is "Sad Song by We The Kings".
An excerpt from the song:
"You and I,
We're like fireworks and symphonies exploding in the sky.
With you, I'm alive
Like all the missing pieces of my heart, they finally collide.
So stop time right here in the moonlight,
'Cause I don't ever wanna close my eyes.
Without you, I feel broke.
Like I'm half of a whole.
Without you, I've got no hand to hold.
Without you, I feel torn.
Like a sail in a storm.
Without you, I'm just a sad song.
I'm just a sad song."
I've heard people saying that love transcends all the boundaries of age, religion, race, colour, height, weight, or wealth status.. But I doubt it. Is it real ?
I ask the readers, "Tell me, what is 'Love' to you ?"