Raw thoughts

It's the end. You're free. Free from everything. Free from things you wanted to break away from. Free also from the things you held dearest. Free from the basis of your life. You're nothing. In no way can you influence the things/people you have been separated from. You are free from liking/disliking the situation. Freedom from everything makes you nothing.

Death.

You're alive. You like several things in your life. You dislike so many things in your life. The thought of being separated from all this is so scary. Imagine being nothing at all. Being a mere name, spoken by a few. Being buried into mud, with micro organisms feeding on you; or being burned to ashes. Death is like the end. You simply don't exist anymore. You can't interact with people you love(d).

It is natural to lament. You lament that you have limited time with the people you love. Someday they're going to die, and someday you're going to die. You will not be together after that.

Then you first face it. Someone close to you dies. You can't interact with him/her in any known way, as long as you're alive. You aren't even sure of being together after you die. Nothing is certain. You time with your loved one is over. Nothing known can get him/her back. You stop caring. Life seems a joke. Nothing seems real.

You can't imagine him/her being nothing. Being non existent. You ponder about after life.

Somewhere down the line you think that life is like a journey, but you wonder about the destination. You love your fellow "travelers" (you loved ones). But you realize that they were just like the people you meet on an train/airplane ride, albeit this time the ride is through time and not space.

You think about the sets of friends you had in primary school, the ones you had at secondary school, the ones you had at senior secondary school, the ones you had at college, the ones you had after that. You see the analogy. Nothing stays. No association is permanent. You recall your first girlfriend/boyfriend. You still wonder how/why you broke up. You think about all the subsequent such relationships you've had. You realize that someday you'll be free from all this.

You think that death is the the end of everything. After more pondering you feel it is like the end of a vacation, the only difference being you don't know anything what happens when school/college/work restarts. You don't even know where, when and with what you'll end up with. The uncertainty makes you want to live. But you don't care. You miss your loved one(s) who have "crossed the fence". You long for the "other side of the fence" hoping that you're with your loved one again. But, there is no indication to confirm or refute that.

You live on, not knowing anything, except that one day you'll cross the fence.

Do We Really Love?

About twenty three months back I wrote about love. A friend I mentioned found love to be a mere manifestation of the human psyche. He wasn’t ‘in love’ then. I was. Now, he’s ‘in love’. I’m not. Now he believes in love. He thinks ‘falling in love’ is real. I don’t. The table has turned. One’s belief in something changes with situation.

I still believe in the platonic aspect of love – that love is having unconditional affection for someone. Nevertheless, ‘unconditional affection’ seems oxymoronic. It is so difficult to be affectionate without condition. You love someone without a condition, without a purpose? You love someone and don’t want anything?

Let’s take some examples. Your parents love you unconditionally (in most cases). They love you for what you are, even if you aren’t exactly what they want you to be. However, do they love you without wanting to fulfill their desire of seeing you happy, which in turn makes them happy? Would they love you as an unhappy, discontented, displeased person? Is it not that they want you to be happy, rather to genuinely appear happy to them?

The same applies to friends, siblings, etc.

Coming to the girlfriend-boyfriend love, what’s the difference? If you’re committed, you love your girlfriend/boyfriend. You want her/him to be happy. You are ready to do anything (well, almost) to achieve that end. However, would you love to see your girlfriend/boyfriend unhappy, discontented, and displeased?

We want our loved ones to be happy. We are ready to move mountains for that. But do we really want them happy, or do we want them to appear genuinely happy to us? How do we know what actually makes them happy? We assume that what we think will make them happy will actually make them happy. In an effort to achieve this, we try to change them to what we would like them to be, because we think that is what is best for them. But who are we to decide what is best for them? They are living individuals, not programmed robots. Sometimes we are more experienced, but the lesson learnt from the experience does not necessarily apply to our loved ones.

This is what leads to ‘generation gap’. This is what leads to interference in our ‘loved’ ones’ lives.

In other words, we don’t love people. We love what we want them to be. Truly unconditional affection is rare.

Recommencement

After a break of one year, I'm back to blogging. This is my third blog, and unlike the first two, it does not bear the name 'A Soaring Eagle'. I hope this one doesn't share the fate as the earlier blogs. If you read my earlier blogs, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, then, don't worry. Just treat this as my first blog.

I'll restore some posts from the first and second blogs, with approximately the same date and time of posting.