Saturday, March 26, 2011

Surviving Love......... or not!!

Love can be terrifying sometimes, I've learnt. It can creep onto your chest and into your heart, and you can do nothing about it except lie there, paralyzed and breaking into a sweat! All symptoms of happiness and light-headedness felt thereafter may only be a reaction to Love's potent venom.
Unfortunately, there are no precautions you can take to evade Love. Some "experts" on the subject (and God knows we have too many of them) are of the opinion that keeping your heart cold and unresponsive might help. This, i'm sorry to say will, at best, only delay the onslaught, not deliver you from the inevitable. Others will suggest assuming an "i'm too cool for Love" attitude. This approach again, has its limitations. Subjects using this approach have been known to grow so obsessed with being "too cool" in the face of love, that they inadvertently buckle under pressure in that split second of "uncool" carelessness. And this fact I can vouch for through personal experience. And then there are those few who will suggest something that I personally find almost comical. This clueless group will convince you to apply the "chicken-pox theory" to Love. As in, " Like chicken-pox, Love can happen only once in your life-time! So if you've already suffered from Love in the past, you're safe!The effects of that attack are bound to last all your life". Nothing could be farther from the truth, nothing could be more ill-advised.

I can, however, offer you only a sliver of hope of recovery from these inevitable attacks. From recent experiences I have come to think of Love as a hermit crab. You see, like a hermit crab, Love needs a host, a heart to dwell in. Once settled in, it sets about working it's seemingly devious plan. Love attacks the nervous system of the host at just the right moment. A potent mixture of chemicals makes its way from this until-now dormant infiltrator's home (the heart) to the host's brain. Signals get frayed and pandemonium follows. And to what effect you might ask. And i will attempt to explain this in the best way I can. Do forgive me if i somehow fail to, after all, it is Love that I will be attempting to explain to you. An admittedly impossible task.

Love, for all it's over-bearing, over-powering persona does have this one primal need. Like nature's code for every creature on the planet, Love also is instinctively programmed to "go forth and multiply". This, Love achieves by literally brain-washing it's host to do it's bidding. And thus the host is compelled to begin it's quest for another like itself, a host, also with a Love-infested heart.

And the rest, as they say, is biology. Through the meeting of the hosts, Love achieves it's purpose. to multiply. You've of course heard of love growing and multiplying when two people come together. I think I may have managed to explain exactly how.

But for those of us not keen on having Love take possession of our hearts, i did promise to offer that sliver of hope. So then, what you need to please understand is, whether this works for you or not is pretty much out of your control. Nature will decide, not you. So when you are on that quest for another like you, there is just a chance, that the one you choose may decide not to join you. The Love in your heart may sense this and send your brain into over-drive, compelling you to ridiculous lengths to try to convince him or her any way you can to join you. But, if he or she still decides to reject your advances, the love that has held on to you will slowly loosen it's grasp. Because you see, Love needs to replicate itself. To fulfill that urge, it may go so far as to leave you completely for a while looking for greener pastures, nobody knows just how long, only to come back to reclaim what was once it's home.

And thus, there is a chance that even after Love conquers your heart, rejection may just drive it right back out.

But I do leave you this fair warning. In the past few weeks of my battles with Love, I have stumbled across what i think is Love's greatest ace in hand. You see, Love has it's own selection process. It will seek out hosts that are characteristically hopeful, the ones that are hopeful beyond hope. Because Love knows that in the face of rejection, hope is the only thing that will keep it alive and safe. The longer the host has hope, the longer will Love survive. Love's own contingency plan!!

You've got to Love it!!

3 comments:

CRD said...

Awesome post dude...made great reading.

Unfortunately though, I don't think we'll ever understand love. You know that too, dontcha? :P

Cheers
CRD

pensive said...

Thanks a lot CRD, very encouraging!!
Yeah, we were never meant to understand it, just adore it or endure it, i suppose!!!

Unknown said...

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And When his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And When he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.


When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

---
Gibran Kahlil Gibran
from: The Prophet