A Few Quips On Love

 What is love?

Where can it be found?

These simple questions are anything but. Love is complex state wherein the only common denominator is the person being loved. The lover is a nobody, by all accounts. From a rational perspective, he falls into the header of 'pathologically obsessed'; consumed therein, by a mundane image of just another somebody. Then that image becomes an idea. The idea of togetherness. Of intimacy and companionship. All manner of physical and temporal context fades away, leaving behind one thing and one thing only. One name, and one identity,  albeit not one's own. Even the library, with its infinite tomes carrying an infinite treasure trove of un-explored ideas, can provide no sufficient distraction. The universe itself seems faded away. Thus, here in the purity of love alone, can one understand heaven. Only in love is one imperfect soul more than equivalent to that of seventy-two chaste and subservient maidens. 

The answer to the second question is that no one should consciously attempt to look for love, because they'd be cursed to find it. Also, given the general un-preparedness of their own predicament, it would be extremely potent, similar to any unchecked power ripe for destruction. Since its nature aligns with the inherent human potential to be self-destructive, it fulfills its promise. To the T. 

Love can be a choice too. Like every choice, it bears consequence. The silence of the person being loved, for example. It makes poets out of men. 

Or hitting close to home, budding screenwriters. Love, without the reciprocal romance, after all, is a horror movie.

Is the lover fated to suffer? The generally accepted standards in literature and media seem contingent upon the fact. The hand (or mouth) of the bereaved lover moves and out flow the structured verses, read (or sung) and ultimately aestheticized by others. The tragedy of the lover is only compounded by the corresponding hypocritical cynicism of those who also believe in love yet proceed to hold the expresser to account for his egregious acts. Sadly, that list of questions will never get answered.

 If one were to ask those unsuspecting subjects of love, the whole thing can as simply be chalked up to as 'overthinking'. (This does give the whole thing an interesting perspective, i.e. the aforesaid love being  a wholly conscious choice as opposed to something spontaneous.) Should the lover imbue themselves with the courage to mask their intentions, they'd be better off. Pretend otherwise. Say nothing of the sort. That way, at least they have some manner of control over the situation making it socially sustainable, giving themselves the illusion of likelihood. Even then, the reciprocation may be too little, too late. The shallow, materialistic boxes may not be properly checked. The impromptu standards may not be completely met. The little debts of deceit continuously being incurred upon the truth. Later, if not sooner, they'd pay themselves off. But at what cost? 

To love or not to love, is that the question?

The existential dilemma of the lover is in a thorough and intuitive grasp of all the above eventualities. The corresponding dilemma of the beloved is in having already experienced them beforehand. If there can blossom love, it must magically spring somewhere from the 'in-between', the limbo waiting to be realized by either side, wanting to call both to action. It is the wait for courage that is painful, the whimsical nature of circumstance, too fast.

To conclude, love, as a phenomenon, is a tragedy, in and of itself. Yet anything pure and inherently truthful, must be made to endure. There is and will only ever be an abundance of mockery on the other end. Now that is much gratuitous and fulfilling. Convenient. 

Love, then, as the greater of two evils, must always be the option to go with, regardless of any and all mortal peril.  

Here, I must implore the reader to take a break. Maybe take a cup of tea, sit by the window, play Shawn James' version of the famous song 'Ain't No Sunshine' and stare absent-mindedly into the abyss, allowing the ebb and flow to tell their own story, one of yearning, loss and disbelief all happening simultaneously, like the merciless crashing of the ever turbulent waves on a barren dirt-filled sea-shore. (And as it so happens, it is indeed going to be some time before there are to be any castles built on it.) 

A close alternative would be the band Kaleo's 'I Can't Go On Without You' but, either way, the veterans of the existential conflict otherwise known as the purest love would inevitably find their footing, should they endeavor to undertake these little forays into the deepest, darkest recesses of their own subconscious. 

The vocals of both aforementioned songs are somewhat cathartic, helping to confront the torture of the gas chambers of the mind thus familiar to the pain of longing. Or belonging.   

Shirley Jackson, the author of The Haunting of Hill House, quite poignantly remarked, "Journeys end with lovers meeting." The reversal is the all-too-real hell for many. Hell, in my opinion, isn't just a well-defined passage into a nether world complete with it's own warning inscription as Dante would have us believe. Rather, it is an endless open sandscape. Even at the height of toil, the parched sinner is condemned to perpetually steel himself for the countless more leagues to traverse. There is already thus, unlike Dante's inferno, no hope to be consciously abandoned, or any doorway through which to have formally made an entrance into. Everything is already all there in that desolate oblivion, all in complete conformity with any and all patterns of theory or reasoning ascribed to it, divine and man-made, all by-the book and as an offshoot of individual creativity, all fitting together in spontaneous simultaneity.

 Hence, the wages of love are in the sinner experiencing the ravages of the hellish wasteland before actually ending up there in spirit.