Love

"They say it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved..."

If you can, read it with the music playing. I feel that it will add to the overall experience.

I read this saying a long time ago when I was barely 10 years old. I didn't agree then. Yet the words have stayed with me since. A year and a half ago, newly heartbroken; truly heartbroken for the first time in my life; I disagreed vehemently. 'It is better to never have loved, if you're to lose it all anyway!' thought my angry 19 year old self. What is the point of loving and losing anyway? I always used to argue this with myself. How can anyone miss what they never had? What is love anyway?

Why is love one of the greatest enigmas? Everyone knows what it is like to be in love yet no one knows what it is. It is there in every society, culture or civilization. Much has been said about it from Ancient Greece to modern day Australian aborigines, from the writers of philosophy to purveyors of pornography. Yet, curiously they all agree. Love. they say. is all powerful. Love is something that cannot be understood. Love is without boundary. Love happens. Love cannot be explained by the laws of logic. Yet no one knows what love is.

Yesterday, I watched a movie called Mr. Nobody. It was about the infinite webs of choices that lead one to their ends in life. It was also about love. The protagonist, Nemo, endures endless torment: years and years of living alone, boredom, physical pain, millions of lives lead and possibilities explored. All for love. To be with his love. I realized that I have never felt that way about anyone. In my entire life, I have never loved someone the way Nemo did. Selflessly, doubtlessly, eternally. What a beautiful thing is love! To never feel it, yet see its purifying effects on others. To watch them endure in the hope of a one in a million chance, watch them fight for it. Kill for it, die for it. Is painful. It's not a sensible torture. You feel no pain. Even pain is a presence. It's torture because you feel absence. Something missing. Yet you do not know what is missing. Because you have never felt it. And thus, you cannot stop wanting it. You can banish, ignore or endure pain. But  you cannot fight what you cannot see, cannot not-be what you've never been. Most of us go on living our lives without noticing it, but even the dullest among us knows, feels that gnawing void. Life is too short. And life is too long. Whatever we chose to make of it. This music reminds me of it. Like someone I knew long ago but don't remember now.

I hope I feel it before it's time to go. I hope everyone does.

Rain Clouds

When we see something, especially after a certain age and with certain things, do we see it or do we see what our mind sees? In the rain, especially in pre-rainy weather, my mind invariably wanders to times in my childhood when such weather was followed by rushing outside to play as fast as humanly possible. I think I have lost that animal pleasure. Swapped it rather, for the moral-mental satisfaction of an intellectual one. Loss? Who's to say? Anyway - 

The clouds sauntered across the sparkling sky
The wind sang to match
Cool children of raindrops float in spray
And join my sweat in harmony
It is a beautiful cloudy day
Noon darkened to early dawn
A beautiful smell of fresh-wet-earth
Springs from the air like song


The day is suddenly full of possibility...