Love is tyrant

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.” - Neil Gaiman

Love is terrible. I believe it is a juggernaut, hell bent on demolishing who you are. Love cannot create before it destroys. Love demands sacrifice. It needs blood. Your blood. Your old self must die at the altar of love. You cannot be you and be in love, truly and deeply. Your old self needs to perish and give rise to newer one. Love is humiliating. It wants your submission, your sense of self. It is a force that once you reckon with, will humble you. There is no sense of control but only surrender.

Consider the state of motherhood. You physically and mentally undergo a change. Painful change. The same goes for fathers and although the change is less obvious, it does occur. Parents change a lot for their kids. Most of them also love their offspring very much. The easy thing about it is that Mother Nature designed us for it. We have the blood connection to fall back on when the going gets tough.

However, when it comes to love between two individuals not related by blood, things get complicated. The old self refuses to die. The ego doesn't want to budge. Your sense of superiority or pride, take your pick, raises its ugly head. Change is hard, we already know that. Changing for love is even harder. Biology compels us to change for our offspring but Psychology meddles a bit too much when it comes to changing for your love. What if it doesn't work out? What if I have to change more than the other person?  Why should I give up being me? Isn't that unfair? But then, aren't you giving up me to be a, better “we”? If the very notion is revolting to you then what business is it of yours to even be in love? 

"To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best." - William Thackeray

It all boils down to the flexibility of your emotional self. How quickly can the two of adapt to each other to create a unified entity. I know it sounds so tacky. Haven't we heard this before? They became one in love. They are two bodies but one soul. Blah-blah-blah yada-yada-yada! You can only learn through your own experiences. No one can make you believe this.

What does religion says about love? Hindu philosophy states that becoming one with God involves letting go of your meagre, tiny, inconsequential existence, dissolving your ego and embracing the supreme consciousness. Can you imagine how difficult it must be? Can you imagine denying the perceivable reality of your flesh, bones, ego and self to acknowledge a greater and apparently invisible reality? How do even get there? I believe that is why we need to learn how to be in love. How else will you learn how to be one with the supreme if you can't be one with women and men?

Love is such a fucking tyrant! It has no sense of fairness or justice. It wants what it wants, and you are not getting anywhere without giving in to it. Damn all the sweet, sappy, cuddle filled notions of love! Love is beautiful. It gives meaning to life and a sense of purpose. But it definitely isn’t easy.

"Can there be a love which does not make demands on its object?" - Confucius