Why are humans so complicated? Why do we fall in and out of love, and why is it that nothing is ever our own fault? In life, we always try to look for excuses to blame someone else, be it in our love lives or at work.
Why can’t we just understand that at times, our losses and mistakes may be the consequence of our own wrongdoings and faults?
“It is impossible to fall out of love, love is such a powerful emotion that once it envelopes you, it does not depart.”
I am a writer if that’s what you call someone who can pen their thoughts on paper. Or these days, on a white screen with a flashing cursor. But I’m a reader too, and I read more than I write. I read a lot, and my interests solidify in phases. Since the past month or so, I’ve found myself roused by murder mysteries. What I have quoted above is a quotation which I read somewhere at the phase when I was into romantic novels. And it is a wonder that I haven’t forgotten it yet.
Isn’t it incredible that we never forget something about love? I’m quite certain you remember your heart tugging moments too. I bet you even remember if your sweet first love had a mole on their chin. As surprising as it may seem, we never forget our love interests. Not after a decade. And not after a century, if you ever live that long.
You may feign forgetfulness, but in reality, the thought of a loved one always lingers inside our heads, waiting to magically recreate itself in moments of solitude. That’s probably because love or the feeling of falling in love is something that isn’t impressed upon you by circumstances. You ‘choose’ to feel it. You choose to strike the romantic chord that harmonizes you and brings you bliss, in a manner that a thousand words would never be able to explain.
Almost all relationships that exist outside the boundary of true love are purely ‘need-based’. You like someone a lot because they’re fun to be with. You want to hook up with someone, because they’re just smoking hot. Or you hug someone and speak about anything that comes to your mind because you need comforting. All of these people who come into your life can be forgotten. And they will be. So will that little crush of yours, back in seventh grade.
No one can force you to choose the one you love. Try recollecting the early days during the spring of your love. Everything was so warm and sappy, the flowers looked so romantic and the clouds so blue, and more blah. Your lines were so corny and stupid, and you loved stupid baby talk. But even that didn’t make you feel stupid! Your whole existence revolved around your sweetheart. Those long phone calls late into the night, moments when both of you just wanted to hold on to the phone and listen to each other breathing, and other mushy things that you now overlook or feel quite unnecessary. Your love evoked and insinuated you into what seemed like a web of magical imagery.
It’s so perfect, isn’t it? Love. Recollecting even the way our lips move when we pronounce that word seems to bring joy into our lives. Life can’t get any better than that, can it? But then it can. Because most of us feel that our relationship with our loved one can be inadequate at times. That’s alright, even two peas in a pod come with their own issues and differences. But at times, our love can feel really inadequate, like we’re holding on to something futile, like trying to carry fine sand or water in our palms. But then, why do we have to feel that?
We live in a world of binary oppositions. We recognize darkness, because we can discern light. If there were no light in this world, how could we identify its alter-ego? With the same gist, we are familiar with hatred because we know love. We are acquainted with infidelity because we recognize loyalty. These are abstract terms and their meaning comes with the tendency to defer. Words are such an unreliable medium to convey the idea. Everyone reads the same plot and they decode it to their liking. With that thought in my mind, I have to ponder if there is anything that can be clearly defined, or explained.
We can’t decipher the exclusive meaning and can only attempt to swig a trace out of it. We live in this world according to the ‘pleasure’ principle. We denote the occurrences which give us pleasure as affirmatives. The occurrences that make us uncomfortable are depressing to us, like darkness. Infidelity makes us uncomfortable and love elates us. So we refer to them according to the pleasure principle.
According to Saussure, the profound philosopher and philologist, everything in the world has a binary opposition except humans. Can you claim that someone is perfectly bad or wholly good? We are but a mixture of both, waiting to pull out a sheaf of our good and bad side by turns, as and when we want it. Good and Evil reside within us. Within us is a conspiracy that never rears its head, but sniffs the air in deep rasping gasps, waiting for the perfect opportunity.
But how many of us would accept that we have the devil within us? All of us just want Mr. God to hang out in that special place within us, the same one we call a heart. No one ever does anything wrong, they just commit a mistake, even if’s its cheating on a partner. And no one ever commits a mistake, they just did the right thing, or what they felt was right at that time. And if there are no excuses, the circumstances get the blame. Think about it, is anything ever your fault?
Wrong acts always come with excuses and reasons. Right acts come with gloating egos and self-reflecting praises.
Shubham Gupta
