Love 101 – Read All About it
“Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
I am a big fan of love stories and romantic movies, the mushier, the better but with a happy ending. ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen occupies the most revered spot on my bookshelf, this romantic novel is a splendid blend of romance and drama, and it has a happy ending.
Another favorite of mine, is ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte, an intense love-hate story but with a tragic end. I know it doesn’t fall into the happy ending genre, but not everything in life is perfect and there are a few greys in this black and white world of relationships. ‘Little Women’ by Louisa May Alcott is a personal treasure as well as ‘Sense and Sensibility’ by Jane Austen.
Real life is bad enough; let the reel-life be blissful for the couples in love, right? All die-hard romantics, like me, will agree with my philosophy. I am not saying that all romantic movies have happy endings but I like the ones which do, some with tragic endings also have a special place in my heart, but they make me cry buckets of tears. My absolute favorite romantic movies are Jerry McGuire, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, An Affair to Remember, Love Story, Casablanca, Ghost, Gone with the wind, and the list goes on…
Another favorite movie of mine is the romantic comedy ‘Suburban Girl’. Brett Eisenberg, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, describes her feelings for Archie Knox (Alec Baldwin), to her friend, “I know, it’s nuts, but when I’m with him I feel like a better version of myself… You know? Funnier, smarter, sexier.” Love does that to people; it ties people up in emotional knots and makes them more aware of their partner’s positive qualities and charms.
A classic love story is Falling in Love with Robert De Nero and Meryl Streep. In one scene Meryl Streep is talking to her best friend about Robert De Nero, “Molly Gilmore:[talking to Isabelle about Frank] No, I think about him every day. Last thought before I fall asleep and first thought when I wake up. I talk to myself all day about him, even when I’m talking to somebody else, even when I’m talking to you now I’m talking to myself about him.” What is this malady called Love? Why does it strike us, and leave us floundering, gasping for breath?
“Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it…It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.” – Erica Jong
Blogging About Love
I have a lot of friends in the writing community and ‘Love’ seems to be the favorite topic of a majority of blogs. It features in a lot of posts, including mine. In-fact, I am referred to as a’ romantic’ by my writer friends, and it pleases me no end. I am in love with love. What is not to love here, I love life, I love writing, I love reading, I love music, dancing, my family, my friends, and love is everywhere. So what is this thing called ‘love’?
Definition of love: To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
Love – Not a Catalog Pick
A feeling of intense desire, mind you, towards a person. This person is not someone you pick out of a catalog, based on availability, proximity of residence and guarantee of reciprocal love. Your soul recognizes its mate; your heart accepts him into its fold, unconditionally. Without asking if he loves you back, or how long will he stay in your life? Love happens, it just does, no questions asked. You fall in love and not schedule an appointment, don’t plan days in advance to meet and take the plunge. You happen to enter an elevator or walk into a roomful of strangers and you see him. One look is all it takes; you are never, the same again.
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination, full of hope.” – Maya Angelou
Love gives your life a new meaning, a fresh prospective to look at events with, it makes your heart sing with joy and sob with unbearable pain too. But would you rather have a monotonous, uneventful, boring and predictable existence or feel the emotions coursing through your veins, throbbing in your pulse and coloring your life with the hues of the rainbow of love?
You can be in love with a number of people but you only ever fall in love with ‘The One’, he who holds the key to your heart, the one who hears the whispers of your soul or whose heart communicates with yours, silently, eternally and beyond. Sometimes, he is unaware of his feelings, and goes about his life, unconcerned about your attachment, wants and desires. So what do you do, stop loving him? No, that is not love, that’s a business deal: “I will care for you only if you love me too”, it doesn’t work that way. You felt the connection, recognized your soul-mate, you be true to your feelings and continue loving him, don’t expect him to reciprocate just because you want him too.
The Enigma of Love
“Love tainted with selfishness is ‘attachment;’ it is only about you. You expect a return for your affection, tangible or intangible. You make demands on people and bind them. You feel insecure, vulnerable and threatened. Your expectations never seem to be met with. The relationship thus becomes conflict-ridden. In the end, it breaks down and you lose the person.” – Jaya Row
A very dear friend of mine is going through a turbulent period in her life and has found her true love. But he lives in another city, and they are unable to meet as often as they would have liked to. She often wonders about her dependence on him and chides herself, Why couldn’t she have chosen someone who was easily accessible. Someone with fewer issues in life, Life would have been so much easier for both of them. It wasn’t as if she was looking for someone but when they met, something happened.
Time stood still for her, life came full circle, and she came alive after a long time. Even she was not aware of her need for him until then, she knew that her life lacked a purpose, but what was it, she didn’t know. Then it dawned on her that she was meant to be with him, they were destined to meet and fall in love. She is consumed by his thoughts day and night, cannot get him out of her head and heart. She reaches out to him constantly, can’t help herself. This angers him, and she doesn’t understand, why?
I read this interesting article in today’s paper, about conflict and love, by Jaya R0w.
“Are you in conflict with the people you love most? Do you experience incredible highs followed by invariable lows in your relationships? Have the days of wine and roses become days of whine and neuroses? Love others for what they are, the good as well as the bad. Understand that people behave according to their nature.”
When she says, ‘You complete me’, you do. But what she means is that you and she are two wholes, and together you complement each other. What she doesn’t mean is that she is a cripple in need of a crutch. Heaven forbid if she ever became one emotional cripple; she’d rather die than admit to it. She loves you too much to put you in such a position. You complete her fantasy, you are her knight in shining armor, her Sir Galahad, and you are the culmination of all her dreams, the hidden face of the masked rider on a horse in her dreams.
Love makes you do silly things, and you crossover to the wild side. You dare to be different, take more risks. You say and do things, you’d never normally do. Love makes you bold and adventurous to the core. Admire her courage and depth of vulnerability; she has bared her soul to you without knowing how you feel about her. This is the extent of her commitment to you.
“True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.” – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
If you have someone in your life who makes you smile without any reason, makes you happy just being with them, makes your heart beat faster just thinking about them, don’t let them leave. Kiss them senseless, hug them breathless, love them endlessly and adore them wholeheartedly.
Do whatever you have to to make them stay with you, they are your reason for getting out of bed in the morning. If you are apart, don’t fret, you never know when life will give you a pleasant surprise. Keep your eyes and your heart open to new experiences and opportunities. If he is meant for you, he will come back to you, no matter what. Keep hope alive in your heart, have faith in the universe.
Lucks aka Sulekha
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What do you all think? Do share your thoughts with us.
31 Comments
Entire set of screw-ups happen because people set out to love. They believe they have a lot of love to give. But they don’t. Before loving someone, one has to develop a capacity for love. There are a lot of articles and posts on how to love and go about it. But no one has mentioned so far about developing the inner capacity for love first. Human beings per se are empty souls without any purpose or objective and are led like a lone fallen leave waving in the gusts of time. Until and unless one fills that emptiness within oneself, one cannot have anything to give to the other. And that’s why with the passage of time, that emptiness within each person starts demanding things from the other in order to get filled. Two empty vessels trying to take things from the other to be filled? And you know what happens then. A lot of noise and nothing else!
@Sonia, Welcome to my romantic world and thank you for your compliment. I love Holiday too, how did I forget to mention it? There is an Emma in all women, some let her surface, others smother her inside. Loved your comment,thanks.
Lovely! I keep pretending I don’t much care for Love and yet love all the movies you mention and more! I can watch reruns of mushy movies and shamelessly cry at the drop of a hat in a theater! I am Jane Austen’s Elizabeth and Emma when lightning strikes or Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) of The Holiday when I am down and out….here I go reminiscing again! Thanks for reminding me of the romantic me!
@Swati, I always look forward to your generous compliments on my posts. Thank you and glad that you fell in love again.
Oh what a wonderful article…made me fall in love with love all over again….Very well done Sulekha…
@Melissa, I really appreciate your compliments and thank you for enrolling in my class of Love 🙂 Those who have been in love can understand the pain of separation and loneliness.Thanks for sharing my post with all your friends.
@Sukhi, Thank you for visiting and commenting. Love is the answer to all problems, how true!!
@Kriti, You and unromantic! Never…Thank you for your sweet compliment and for endorsing my status as a hopeless romantic.
@Jim, thank you kind Sir for liking and stumbling my article.
@Rimly, I didn’t mean to make you cry, but smile thinking about love and its many hues. We all love with everything we have, some bare their souls and some keep the pain hidden. To love unconditionally is blissful and easy on the heart.
@Tapas Mukherjee, Thank you so much for your most kind and generous words of praise for my article, appreciate them.
@Belina, thank you for your heart and your compliment 🙂
@Jenni, we women are more demonstrative unlike men, they keep their feelings locked in their tough hearts. But you are right, when they do express their love, it’s magical and a moment to be cherished. Love is a risk but then nothing risked, nothing gained, right? Thank you for visiting my blog and commenting.
@Sancheeta, love is the most talked about subject and yet nobody knows what it means. we all have our own definitions and expectations of love. Thank you for your sweet compliment.
@Janaki, Welcome to my post and thank you for the compliment. love makes life appear beautiful and worth living.
Hi Sulekha, I want to fall in love again and again. Love is beautiful and your writing makes you want it more and more. It is one of the best gifts of GOD. If only everyone gets it and returns it in abundance, all the problems of world will disappear.
Love is all that you say and yes, I confirm with all that my dear Mitr is a hopeless romantic. Probably the worst of all. What a lovely piece on love this is – even makes an unromantic gal like me think again. Lovely!
@Jim, you always leave such nice comments on my articles, thank you so much.
@Ravenmyth, true love is unconditional, at least I think so. When there are expectations in love it becomes a tug of war between two people. Each wants more and more from the other, resulting in bitterness and heartache.
When you love without asking for anything in return, you get abundant love from the universe.Thank you for visiting and your wonderful compliment.
By the way I stumbled this
Oh Sulekha, I want to cry reading this. Every time you talk of love, it lifts my heart. Love is really selfless, you love without wanting anything back, just love. I hope to do that someday, or hope to love without expecting anything. Just loved this Outlier.
I will remember this broad spectrum coverage of the panacea called love for a long time to come. Thank you, Sulekha.
You took my heart away with this. Love ya!
Love happens. Nobody chooses to fall in love it just happens. Romantics know this, men sometimes are slow to figure it out but, they come around. A man won’t just throw his emotions out there like a woman does and when the rare time comes that they do, you better make sure you don’t crush their poor little egos or he will never open up like that again. We should complement and complete one another, it should be the joining of two minds, bodies and souls into one. Love with all your being or you will be missing out on all there is to it and that would be sad. Don’t be scared of getting hurt because without the pain you will never appreciate the good.
Love is my favorite subject. I loved your thoughts about love. It is a way of giving and being in the heart of God. Deep confinement in oneself, without any expectations in return.
“We are
People who need to love, because
Love is the soul’s life,
Love is simply creation’s greatest joy.”
Sulekha you are amazing, excellent write up.:))
Wonderfully written…Time stood still for her, life came a full circle and she felt alive after a long time. You have stolen words right out of the hearts of romantics like you. Totally enthralling. Keep up the good work.
You always enthrall me with your words and thoughts! Really well written and you included some of my favorite
movies. We will always have Paris ..a great line!!!
You are right Sulekha, love just happens, we do not pick and choose. I like your analogy to the Catalogue. It is also true that love takes us to the greatest heights of emotion we could imagine..it is like a drug. You want to stay there and you want more..but alas..it does diminish over time. I guess the endorphins cannot maintain forever. And then we have the downside of Love ending..taking us to the lowest and most painful of emotions.
I love the phrase “True love begins when nothing is looked for in return”..this is where love becomes reciprocal…using the visual of the Eternity symbol…energy flowing back and forth..ever connected…but giving and receiving in equality…balance in the art of Love..keeping both cups full without the draining of one or the other. I love the phrase I heard once…”That which you Love the most will be yours when you give up the struggle.” ( here I changed the original word from want, to Love) ..and that is trusting in the Universe…
Beautiful post…enjoyed every word.
Melissa, thank you for your lovely compliments, I really appreciate them, god bless.
Sulekha Rawat…I love this and you know why…”I love ‘love’…and no one could do this better..
Oh I’d like to include this in my curriculum for life. I ate every word you wrote Sulekha. You’ve picked suitable (the best) quotes (I love Rilke and Antoine!)
There were two things that made a great impact on me—
“You can be in love with a number of people but you only ever fall in love with ‘The One’—oh how true! You relieved me of many misconceptions. Thank you. I find myself attracted to many people but despite that my heart belongs to only One person.
“But what she means is that you and she are two wholes, and together you complement each other.” How beautifully said. We are still two made one…”two wholes”…
I love this post Sulekha…it made me ponder on so many love points :* I’ll enroll in this class now 😉