Monterey

Monterey
Life is beautiful.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Love....

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I have always asked myself what exactly this strange feeling is. It is perhaps the predominant theme of most creative works (not including the sas-bahu soaps which include more of hatred and deception than love). It perhaps is the fountain of Shakespeare's classic thoughts or the ripples of Yeat's romantic chords. The profundity of its extravagance perhaps flows down the depth of emotions but again what is this indispensable emotion? Why does it pick and choose people? Why is it painful and yet so indispensable and why is it so confusing, always landing you up in some dilemma or the other? What is love all about? Is it a fact or fiction? How subjective is our perception when it comes to perceiving something as encompassing as the very concept affection?

Nietzsche says, 'There are no facts, only interpretations.". But how will anybody explain the universality of thoughts associated to something as subjective as the very concept of love. No doubt every fact or interpretation (whatever you call) begets exception but how do you explain the emotions attached to a parent and a child. Is that an over generalization or a stereotype, a construct to which we associate a position. Are we slightly getting very theoretical? Lets see if that helps in our probe into this very mundane yet pristine concept.

Of late I have been cracking my head over a question without any success. Let me see if this blog brings in a convincing answer. You love your parents, your kith and kin...this can be explained...after all they have done all they can for you, you are attached to them since the time you were born...quite understandable but how do you explain the affections that proclaim you for one fine person you meet one fine day and simply lay all you have at stake? Hold on, here, I am not talking about the different variations of this love. Didn't get it? I mean the very utilitarian love that of course is transient. Let me explain with an example. Bubly meeting Bunty one sunny day, falling in love and announcing the downfall of Bunty before he realizes that it was his bike that she was in love with would be an ideal example. You are most welcome to come up with other corollaries of this variety. Without getting into a lot of tangents lets return to our point.


So how do we explain this exuberance of emotions that suddenly strike us and sabotage all our logical processes? Can we ever explain that longing to see somebody and the efforts put in to make that person smile? What is it that rips our hearts apart when we part? Don't you ever feel the pounding of your hearts, that silent rhythm within which makes you curse yourself? More worse is when these emotions start yielding expectations. At this point, let me alert you that neither I am ending up giving you a flow chart of the consequences nor do you need them. All I am doing is thinking aloud the intricacies of this strange intoxicant that has borne myths and mythologies and persisted in multifarious manifestations challenging the magnanimity of time and space.
While talking about this classic theme, love, I am almost tempted to evoke the cosmic energy by bringing in the night decked with moonshine, the dawn crowned with dew drops. But I resist the temptation to do so. I refrain, not because it may seem clichéd to some but because I cannot dare to duplicate something so beautifully done by the harbingers of love in poetry, fiction and music.
This post is nothing but an aimless meandering; it reminds me of Prufrock’s ‘mermaids singing one to one’. Also, pray do not condemn me if my writing seems jargon of superfluity. As I have already said, it is an escape from commonplaceness, a distance from the conversational mode that distorts words for the sake of simplification. This escapism is what I guess keeps these strange emotions, which we call love, alive. Call it an abode or a sojourn you have to seek its refuge at least ones in your lifetime. Why else do you think Heathcliff says "You said I killed you--haunt me, then! Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" .

1 comment:

Nitu said...

Ppl say time is a good teacher..n I believe it..Hold on..