The Rational Romantic and the Wanderer

I grew up in India watching bollywood movies, believing in the 'made for each other' and the 'one true love' sort of notions. But when you really come to think of it, we all know what love is, independent of lust and sex. Love is when you care for somebody, a lot.

But romantic love is a little bit different. It isn't just love or concern, it's also an expectation, or a desire. Romantic love involves the wish to have a right on another person, to possess in a small way, and be possessed by them. This is what sometimes grows into obsessive love.

The rational mind knows that everything in life is transient. All states of being eventually come to an end and that even emotions are fleeting.  The rational accepts this and looks to experience all there is to experience, to develop and mature with each experience and find a deeper understanding of the world and the self.

The gap between the romantic and the rational is dangerous territory. Here you fall in love with people, places, emotions, and want to hold on to them, knowing all the time that one of you will soon leave and move on, and most likely it is you who will feel the need to find another life, if you haven't already put an expiration date to your current life.

You can't help yourself from falling head over heels in love and you cannot stop yourself from breaking your own heart, over and over and over again. That is the curse you live with. You hurt nobody more than you hurt yourself.

You are a traveller
Of both time and space
A collector of memories

But one day, some day,
Those invisible strings will
Finally hold you down

They will let you go no further
You journey will end
But you will find peace in captivity

The strings are memories
Raw, boiling emotion
Sentiment and unshed tears

One day there will be no more space
In the museum of
the antiquities of the past

And the present will be
More beautiful than the promise
of another future.

Stay, stay with me
Hold me down right here,
This is the place
From where I will never want to move on.

Afraid to live

I've always believed that who we are is the sum of our experiences and life is about living each moment. There is no grand goal for us to reach, no higher state of being to achieve. This right here is who we are and who we will ever be.

But despite this rationale, it is surprising how difficult it is to be fearless and put oneself out there to go through all those possibly amazing experiences. To allow yourself to experience all the good things in life, you have to allow yourself to experience all the crap as well. And hardship only makes us deeper, more mature characters. Still, it is difficult to walk out into the scorching sun. It is hard to go to the gym the first day after having lived like a bum for months. It's hard to let yourself fall in love when you know you will soon leave. But life is for those who embrace it. Without life, there is little more than existence.