We go on searching for the love we had felt for the very first time. And yet the unknown attracts us the most. What is this conundrum?
Conversations with my friends often become sources of my work. This particular thought of old love was put in my head by my very dear friend, Strawberry.
Strawberry and I have very strange conversations at times. If someone else were to hear us talking, they would probably think of us as a bunch of madmen ranting about unreal, useless things, and I wouldn't really contest that thought (because we do weave unending imaginary tales).
It was during one such conversation that Strawberry, in one enlightened moment of truth, gave me a lot to think about. He said "we always search for that love that we had the first time ever. The first time we felt our heart flutter is the feeling we chase in every subsequent person or thing. That is why it is the happiest thing in the world to return to that place of comfort, familiarity and warmth."
Familiarity. It is such a funny thing. We want the familiar, the comfortable, the known, and yet the unknown calls out to us like the light calls out to the sunflowers. It's a conundrum, a dilemma no one seems to have the answer to.
There are such practical questions that arise in my mind as an answer to this conundrum. Yes, maybe old love is what we seek. But what if that love was toxic? What if, from the outset, the first feeling of love for me (say) was inherently destructive and that is probably why I moved on from it. Would you tell me to go back to it? Would you ask me to chase that again, just because it is familiar. No, right? Then answer me this: if this logic were to hold true, wouldn't it mean that for a lot of us, every other relationship shall remain incomplete and unsatisfactory? Familiarity is good, warm and safe. But has there ever been progress when people were safe? Should our quest not include the unknown, for the simple reason that maybe that unknown is the great love story written for us?
Let's take the other end of this statement. We keep chasing an ideal: an evolving picture of the things that will make us fall for someone. We create checklists and filter out our lives in such a way that we can look back at it all and say "we evolved and grasped the unknown". But why is the unknown so romanticised? Why is it so hard to accept that maybe, the only thing that truly satisfies you is that old feeling. Why must we attach status; both social and financial, to having a shiny new thing instead of returning to one's roots? Why should your dreams be so predetermined and why can't they cry out for home when they want to?
See,
It is a spiral, and not an easy one to beat. I am all of 21, and I now there reside two parts to my personality. One clings to its past, and one wants to take leaps and bound and explore every inch of the universe. Who is to say which part is the 'ideal'?
Therefore, I leave this post incomplete, because I do not know the answer to this problem. Can you tell me?
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