The Four Dark Horsemen of Love

The world we live in revolves, among several things, around love (or so we are made to believe). Right from our birth to the day we merge with the cosmic whole, we are constantly told via books, music, movies, billboards and commercials that life is beautiful if you are in love with someone. Generation after generation of authors and poets have written pages upon pages about the beauty of love and those pages have been avidly consumed by the masses like us to build a Utopian vision of love. However, only when we truly love someone do we realize that love has infinite layers to it. Do not get me wrong - I am not saying that love is not beautiful - all I am saying is that it is not just the beautiful things.

People seek love and companionship to be happy. And there is plenty of happiness to be sought. There is a definitive joy in a dinner date, in the stolen kisses, in the interlocked hands. There is a sense of calmness in the long hugs and longer walks, in the nights spent sleeping in each other's arms. There is a sense of positivity that lures us into the throes of love, subconsciously or otherwise. But what we do not realize, for a very long time, are the not-so-beautiful aspects of a romantic relationship. The top of the list is probably fear. Love always comes bundled with fear. Even in the best of relationships, there resides an element of fear - of losing the significant other. In a more troubled relationship, the scope of fear is pretty substantial. People can be afraid of each other, of commitment, of abandonment, of violence, of falling out of love, of betrayal and a myriad of other things. There is no love that does not get accompanied by a sense of fear. Anyone who says otherwise is either delusional or lying. Think about the person you love most and you will know that fear inevitably follows you around. 

Another aspect of a relationship that is not as rosy is perhaps hard-work. Relationships require constant effort to last. Even the matches made in heaven require a very earthly human effort to last a lifetime. Humans are fragile beings emotionally and mentally. There are mood swings, dilemmas, societal acceptability, peer pressure and so many other variables that any relationship can fall apart no matter the amount of love shared between the two people. It takes conscious effort from both sides to grow as individuals without growing apart. Relationships are fun at the onset. There is significant excitement when one is pursuing the other. Even the starting phase is filled with ample dopamine and serotonin. As flawed as humans are, in our infinite wisdom, we conclude that the entire relationship will remain as exciting and fun-filled. The reality dawns after a while and it is immensely harsh. Those willing to do the hard work are the ones who succeed.

One more element that turns out to be a major challenge is the people themselves. Even the best of human beings are flawed. A relationship relies heavily on people navigating the intricacies of each other's personalities. It is one thing knowing each other's favourite colour or cuisine (which is also important) but totally another thing to live with the other's fears, quirks, flaws and demons. It is not limited to that. Supporting each other's dreams, ambitions and hopes is also a taxing yet immensely important act of love. Then there is also the occasion of taking care of each other (the real "in health and in sickness" part) which requires empathy and patience. Loving someone encompasses a whole gamut of negative and positive personality traits. But, if you truly love them, you will love their darkness as well as their light; you will love the face they make when angry; you will love their irrational fears: you will love their dreams.

One of the most unavoidable challenges that we feel completely helpless about are circumstances. From physical distance to families not approving of the relationship to the timing when two people meet each other, there are often events and situations that make the possibility of two people being together close to impossible. There is only so much we can do in such scenarios. There is, of course, a design for each of us prepared by fate and there is only so much room for us to manipulate that. The best we can do is try our best - try our best to make that long distance thing work, try our best to convince our families, try our best to be with each other no matter the shape or form of the relationship. We are, after all, mere pawns on a cosmic chess board with only limited capability to wriggle around. 

So, if you thought love was easy, I am sorry to be the one who shattered that myth (hopefully). Love is beautiful but it is also painful, full of anxiety, darkness, hate, anger, and fear. Love is pure bliss but it requires patience, dedication, and hard work. The next time you think you love someone, do ask yourself if you are willing to go through this “ocean of fire" for them or not.

The rise of fatherhood

Having a child is probably one of the most incredible things that can happen to a person. It is a moment unlike any other, especially when it is about the first child. There are myriad emotions overwhelming a person simultaneously and it is probably difficult for anyone to decipher what exactly are these emotions wreaking havoc inside. And I am just referring to the days leading up to and right after the birth; there are a million other things one might feel in the time from conception to the time of the birth and a million more will follow while raising the child, but the moment one sees one's child for the very first time is an exquisite cocktail of head spinning emotions. Sufficient content has been written and consumed repeatedly over centuries on how it feels to become a mother, right from excruciating anatomical details to tiniest of emotional details. Males, generally, are more immune to emotions, yet the advent of fatherhood does invoke quite an emotional response even from the most frosty ones (even if they deny it and don't have any visual indications of it). Most of it is probably plain old biological programming hard - wired to ensure the propagation of the species, yet, it is crafted so exquisitely that one can't help but wonder if it is the same for everyone or unique to one.

So, what does it feel like for a make to have a child? Like being hit by a freight train and still delightful? Here are the top ingredients I could pick out of the heady emotional cocktail of new-found fatherhood:

1. Helplessness / powerlessness

Yes, that is correct, the most conspicuous emotion a soon-to-be father experiences is helplessness / powerlessness. It doesn't matter where you are from and how wonderful and state-of-the-art the medical facilities are, the period of time when your partner is undergoing contractions and labor pain, or the period of time when your partner is in the OT for a c-section, you will feel the stark antonym of omnipotence - sheer powerlessness; you want everything to be alright, you want your child to be born healthy, you want your partner to make it out of it unscathed (relatively speaking). But, you realize that despite your best efforts, as a mere mortal, all you have control and sway over is just your own anatomy (that too, barely). It is at this moment you understand the need of relinquishing control, essentially and precisely because you have none.

2. Belief in higher powers

No matter your religious outlooks, when you sit and wait for your child to arrive, when you have acknowledged your own helplessness, the next step along the journey is to question the cosmos - if not me, then who? That question inevitably leads to an answer not everyone ascribes to but gleefully or resentfully agrees to - that there is something beyond our knowledge and comprehension that now controls the outcome of this episode. People ascribe a multitude of names to it - god, destiny, fate, karma, the universe, the cosmos. That is when the ones with a sense of religion start to pray, and the ones who believe in the laws of attraction and the universe probably send out vibes and thoughts into the universe. Either way, you beg whoever is in control of the outcome to flip the coin in your favour, because you cannot, no matter how hard you try.

3. Joy

The most-associated emotion with child birth is probably joy and it is so because of valid reasons. The moment you see your child for the first time, you experience pure, unadulterated, cosmic joy. If you want to draw figurative parallels of it, do not even try. There is no other feeling and not enough adjectives to describe it. Perhaps the word “joy” itself is an underwhelming image of it. It is probably akin to being touched by angels or blessed by god , but who knows? It is boundless, it is transformative, it is the extent of emotional cognition. No matter what words are used, you would only know it if you have experienced it.

4. Anxiety

From the moment you first hold your child, with the slew of all the love and care that wakes up in the deepest, darkest crevices of your soul, there is also a dark passenger - anxiety. There is a constant state of anxiousness that persists and heightens every time someone checks on your child, everytime your child makes a sound, everytime the breeze touches your child gently, everytime the clock ticks. And it is not just anxiety; there is a mix of fear and worry alongside it. This concoction makes you wish that somebody had invented time travel prior to this moment so that you can look into the future just to make sure that everything turns out just right for your little thing. There is no alleviating this constant state of anxiousness; there is no remedy, just the sense of perplexing fear lurking consistently.

5. Protectiveness

With the constant worry comes the antithesis of it as well - constant protectiveness . As a father, you feel responsible for keeping your child safe constantly. You monitor every aspect of the environ to assess potential threats, you scan every individual approaching your child, you put an extra pillow around to ensure they are well cushioned, you pull your child closer to your chest when a chilly gust of wind threatens a sneeze and you innately are ready to do everything in your power to make sure no harm comes to your child on your watch, even though nobody told you to do so.

Conclusion

That said, these are not the only emotions you would feel and, depending on you, you may or may not feel all of these. And if this sounds discouraging or it appears to highlight negative emotions over the positive ones, just remember that this is about a very small , albeit important , chapter of a much larger tale that is yet to be written. Nobody said raising another human being would be easy , and well, it apparently isn't.

Love and orthodoxy- Rivals and brothers.

In my short span as a blogger, I have refrained from reacting to the writings of some other person because I believe that demeaning the creative yield of another person is not appropriate. But, a certain book has evoked my own creative machinery to an extent that I am bound to respond to it. I have no personal issues with the author, but my crusade is against all the people who think in the antediluvian manner. I hereby respond to an article in which it is quite clearly mentioned that being involved in a relationship during college years is inappropriate as it hampers our academic progress and distracts us from our primary goal, which is to educate our mind to an extent that is opens up to receive any external knowledge which seeks us and also to be able to efficiently exploit our innate talents and abilities. Education, in its purest sense, depicts the process of the blooming of a bud. Our inner selves are quite similar to buds in our early years. Eventually, we reach out and discover new things; we learn to utilize our mental potential. We learn to create, to develop, to innovate. Education ameliorates our creative potential, restructures our thought process to conform with the common belief of right and wrong, along with allowing space for maverick processes for discoveries and inventions. Education and concentration go together; there is no doubting this fact. But the inclusion of the aspect of love to the blend of education yields a very interesting prospect. I will start by severely condemning those who misconstrue love. The bad name associated with love and relationships can be blamed on the people who are more interested in the feeling of love rather than love. Love is not something which is to be sought, nor is it something which is necessary for everyone. Love is a caress of luck and the gift of destiny. Being involved with someone just for the sake of being involved is the biggest mistake a person can make. Such actions have wide-spread ramifications, for those people as well as for the society at large. My word of advice for such people is that friendship is also a very strong emotion. Instead of applying their energy to “seek” love, they should spend quality time with their friends and let destiny take its course. I might sound fatalistic and discouraging, but some things work best when treated in the orthodox fashion.
On the other hand, I will elucidate the power of love. People who adhere to orthodoxy do not realize the potential of love. The person who loves us will always think of our betterment. Love is invariably accompanied by a process of self-evaluation and self-improvement. When love elucidates the inner dark corners of our personality, we strive to cleanse our conscience and we concentrate our efforts in a direction which leads to improvement. Amelioration is an inseparable part of love. No person knows our faults better than our soulmate and we do not trust anyone more than our soulmate. Therefore, if our soulmate points out a particular malicious habit that we possess, we are more likely to improve upon that as compared to any other situation. A lover always inspires, cares, loves and improves the quality of life of the loved one. Life always takes a positive turn on encountering the patch of love, which is unexpected but immensely pleasant. A person attains the peak of his/her abilities when love is the driving force. The lover is our haven, our shield and support in times when our own feet show severe aversion to us. Then, I question, what is wrong with love during college life? Love helps us concentrate on our primary objectives better than any other method. Apart from every other advantage, with love comes joy. The glow on the face of the person, the constant smile that lives on the face and the spring in the step are things that surely aid the education process. A healthy state of mind never mars progress.To all those who snarl at the name of love, and love marriages specially, just remember that this world is not based on the chain of consumer and producers, nor is it based on intelligence. It is based on love. Love is omnipresent and omniscient. Challenging and striving to ebb the flow of something so powerful is an error nobody should make even in the wildest dreams.