LOVE... and the 'kick' of it

Love is everywhere. I have experienced it. So is hatred and indifference. It’s what we choose to see that makes the difference. Opposite of love is not hatred, cause even in hatred you have to be attached to that person to hate him/her that much. Opposite of love then, is ‘indifference’. The neutrality or detachment of it makes it even more brutal.

But the question in my mind is, what is ‘love’ anyways!

Define love. One of the most difficult questions to encounter. Love is giving (ahem... the most shallow description ever. If it ain’t selfish, it ain’t love), Love is this overwhelming longing (overwhelming I agree, but longing, not necessarily), Love is when you can't live without someone (Nah, I have seen more than a few cases when love is just letting go [forced or otherwise]), Love is freedom (sounds interesting, but I have my reservations on that. Freedom is not the prerogative of love or vice-versa), Love is when 2 people fit into each other’s lives like 2 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle (Oh yeah, grow up, to all those people who believe this, there is a lot of adjustment, compromise and acceptance when love does mature. And sometimes people do ‘fit in’ fabulously in each other’s lives but there is just no love). Love is habit (wouldn’t have disagreed more. If your love is a habit then I suggest you get over it as soon as possible. Cause this love then is without substance). So what is love actually?

Love is an amalgamation of a lot of different feelings. Care & Concern – it binds you by getting you involved in the other person’s life, Physical attraction – we are humans at the end of it. If this ain’t there it is just Care & Concern. Identification – one needs to see a part or whole of one’s self in the other person. This is what makes you relate to another person. Yeah I have seen 2 completely different people fall in love. The identification then lies in the contradiction. Appreciation – if you can’t appreciate the other person in some way or the other, then it isn’t love, it’s just pity/sympathy/empathy. These are the feelings I have identified till now. Am sure there are many more. I am in the process of figuring it out myself.

More often than not, relationships are based on 1 of the above feelings more that the others. Sometimes it’s just plain physical attraction, sometimes a high level of appreciation bordering towards being ‘smitten’... Sometimes there is high degree of identification... resulting in finding someone exactly like u... but then... do these last? I don’t know. I guess ‘love’ has to be a mixture of all the above...

What is love if it binds you or strips you off your freedom? But then again, what is love if it just doesn’t bind you or alter your freedom in some way. Love makes you responsible of/about somebody, love makes you do or not make you do certain things for somebody. The beauty of it lies in this contradiction.

People change in love. People grow in love. People are ruined in love and then again people ruin love itself. Love is what you make of it and what it makes of you.

Special Recommendation: Please do see this movie ‘Love Actually’. It’s fantastic and it comes closest to what, I believe, love actually is...

The Stranger in my Mirror

I have made friends, acquaintances, boyfriend, soul mates and everything in between. And I had made a stranger in my mirror. I searched in all the people around me the real friend that I could possibly make and I would lie to myself if I said I didn’t quite find someone who came close to being the friend I was searching for. I have found a few. But something was amiss. I wondered what. Until I realised what I was searching for was sitting right in front of me when I sat here staring at the full length mirror of my home.

I sit here today all relaxed and in ‘solitude’. I want no one I need no one. I ran and ran for my dear life. Not running from something or running to something. Just running. Aimlessly. I ran from that stranger in my mirror. Now I run no more. I love this stranger. I need this stranger.

There was a time I didn’t quite like what I saw in my mirror. It was everything I never wanted. I didn’t know then what I wanted. I still don’t. But I went elsewhere to find that something. The love, the gratitude and the comfort. I didn’t see it in my mirror. I thought I will find it in other people. And believe me I thought I did find it outside. Till one day I decided to have a conversation with my stranger in the mirror.

The stranger looked at me and its eyes asked me just one question. What did I ever find with others that I wouldn’t have found here in this 4 ½ by 1 ½ feet of reflecting surface? I had stared back. I didn’t realise the answer then as I usually don’t (I am a real dim wit in such cases you see). But sooner than later I found the answer. It was nothing. There is nothing in this world that I can't find in this reflecting surface and I need not to go elsewhere. I decided to be friends with this stranger.

And over a period of time I have found a friendship that nothing can break or no one can take away from me. I wonder what took me so long to realise this. I see an image of everything I am, everything I can be and everything I will be. It is a comfort zone I searched everywhere. I found here on the wall of my home.

How often do we sit back and have the patience to sit and talk with this image we create in here? It is the most clear and transparent of being I have ever seen. People can't see what I see in this mirror. I like it that way. I want it to be that way. It isn’t perfect mind you. There are ten thousand of things that I want to change and another ten thousand of things I would never change. And that exactly is the beauty of it. I see a person just like me. Issues like mine. Thoughts like mine. Dreams like mine and nightmares like mine too. Who better can understand me but this friend in this mirror?

I love this person in the mirror. It is no stranger to me anymore.