No two people have the same opinion when it comes to romantic love. Love has as much psychology to it as it does sociology. Love has its biology too, but this article will not discuss that. Romantic love is an emotional addiction. It is the process of intensive imagination whereby an individual associates certain traits, which he cherishes, with a person whom he adores.
No love exists by itself. A lover creates it. A prospective lover associates certain qualities, physical and otherwise, that he values with someone he adores. He sees the prospective beloved through the prism of these qualities. Regardless, whether the beloved possesses those traits or not, the lover is convinced that she actually does. Seen this way, romantic love is an addiction — though the most wonderful of all addictions. Here a lover imbibes and fantasies about the beloved.
For the majority of lovers, romantic love is simply a minor addiction — an infatuation. Every individual who is attracted to only one person is a lover. For minor addicts, love has a way to come in and a way to exit. Think intensely about a person through the prism of certain good qualities, which you think he possesses and you will be infatuated with him slowly but almost surely. Not thinking about that person and repeating the same process with another person instead will relieve you of the first. Human mind has such a tremendous power to accomplish miracles.
However, for some, romantic love is an intensive addiction. Here a lover is hypnotised by his beloved twenty four hours a day. They are major addicts, the hardcore lovers. About their love, Plato had this to say, “The god of love lives in a state of need.” For them, love has its agony as it has its ecstasy. An ardent lover confided in me: “Once you create a [love] space in mind for someone, it cannot be eliminated”. A union with the beloved is the lover’s only painkiller. Indeed, passionate love is addiction in its severest form. A moderate lover says, “You quit, I quit.” But an ardent lover says, “You quit, I stay!” Here, the farthest distance only sharpens the appeal of beloved: “The moon reminds me of you. So beautiful, so bright and so far away.”
In essence, love is intensely possessive. A lover craves for a union with the beloved in the form of friendship and ultimately as a life partner. Love is a conquering spirit. If, sometimes, a lover does not marry his beloved, it is not because of his family’s unwillingness, which is typically blamed. It is not the society either. Nor is it the ethnicity nor race nor religion nor sect. The most powerful emotion, as love is, has the most powerful enemy. It is fear. It starts in the mind, then permeates the heart, and then paralyses whole body, only to engulf the external environment as well. The family and society’s opposition is the mere reflection of the internal fear: the fear that family and society will oppose your love, which eventually happens. Fear is the Achilles’ heel in the strongest fortress of love. It bleeds love profusely and as a defence mechanism, love goes into hibernation. But like an injured lion, love fights back with even with more rigour. This way, adversity strengthens love.
Romantic love is the heart’s game as the mind is selfish while the heart is altruistic. Mind creates problems when there is none; heart obliterates hurdles when there are a thousand. Mind is rational, heart is emotional. Many lovers are torn between choosing their family and their beloved. But where the loss of love is long-lasting torment, the anger of family is not. After all, parents cannot afford losing their children. Many are convinced that love is a temporary happiness, not worth raising ire of parents. Well, then everything is temporary, including life itself.
Every individual is a minor or major addict of romance at least once in his lifetime. Here is the problem: every individual is possessive about someone. The booming entertainment industry is not helping either: it objectifies love exclusively in terms of marriage between two lovers. In the practical world, the failure to marry the beloved, in some cases, results in extreme actions like suicide or addiction to drugs. There is a positive relationship between what people watch on screen and how they act in real life. Things should change. Happiness of the beloved, as opposed to necessarily marrying him/her, should be portrayed as the purpose of love. More, we are all liberal enough to be fascinated with the idea of change but end up being too conservative to change ourselves. The elderly should understand that their love for their children should not be at the expense of their children’s freedom of choice.
Living in the winter of love, we need love beyond the confines of societal constraints. We need inter-ethnic, inter-sect and inter-religious love, for love with the beloved is a high regard for what is associated with her/him: parents, ethnicity and sect and religion. Even beloved’s belongings are worth value: that tiny car, thy long coat, thine hilly abode; thee O sheer elegance!
The author is a researcher and political analyst based in Quetta. He can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @mughtian