“Remember me in your heart:
Your thoughts, and your memories,
Of the times we loved,
The times we cried,
The times we fought,
The times we laughed.
For if you always think of me,
I will never have gone”(Unknown poet)
Emily Brontë, in Wuthering Heights expresses the pain of missing presence, the yearnings and stinging memories of her lover and loneliness; “I knew I would love you the moment I saw you, and I would have loved you forever had you stayed. But you left me with nothing but memories, and now I love those instead. I wake up every day and carry the weight of you, not as you are, but as you were in my mind—perfect, untouchable, a ghost of what could have been. I am lonely because a part of me still lives in that past, and I can’t bring myself to leave it”
Abraham Maslow’s theory on human needs starts with the basic survival requirements: food, water, air, shelter and biological needs including sex is instinctual drive. Mahabharat says that desire (kama) is the essence of life. Kama is the source of action, creation and procreation. Rigveda describes kama as a primordial life force that sustains life andis an essence of life. Upanishad, Plato Freud and Proust view desire’s emanating love as a force of Nature.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' revival closes due to coronavi...
Powerful attraction to one’s love interest is a glue for carnal love such as Nabokov and Octavio Paz have described in their literary works. Marcel Proust in Remembrance of Things Past talks about his intense attraction to a girl he saw briefly on a train station, “I felt in seeing her desire to live which is reborn in us whenever we become conscious of beauty and of happiness.” And there are:self- love, narcissism, philia (love between friends), selfless platonic love, sacrificial love and one-sided idealized love that Amrita Pritam (Punjabi writer) talks about in her romantic writings. Mythical love such as Mira’s towards God and Radha’s for Krishna is a mix of romantic and devotional love. Aristotelian philial (friendship) love consists in giving and wishing the good of others. “The ultimate aim of all love affairs ...is more important than all other aims in human life”. For Schopenhauer, love is what we live for, a powerful evolutionary force. The Will to Life drives us to reproduce and sustain continuation of life. All our struggles and suffering in romantic love are due to our unconscious drive to reproduce.
In Mahabharat, King Yayati says even in thousand years the sensual pleasures are never fully quenched as they keep burning forever! Romantic love focused on one object of desire (specific person) remains a mysterious phenomenon, a topic of introspection. Many profess the power of imagination creates that force, ‘will to love’ inside the brain.
Forty-five years old Dostoyevsky’s love to twenty-year-old stenographer Anna Snitkina is a case of deep love. Anna, a woman of modest means enters the famous writer’s life as a stenographer. She records verbal dictation of his books as the writer, often sick with epileptic fits, was physically weak to write himself and needed Anna’s help to meet his deadlines to publishers. Health, gambling habits and incurring debts were major challenges in his life. During the rigors of work, they came closer to each other,socially and emotionally. The author treated her well as an equalworking partner. Anna was impressed, liked him and it turned out to be a moving, joyful experience for both. One day the author asked her:if he wished to get married should he choose an intellectual or a kind woman as his life partner? Anna replied: “Of course, an intellectual should be your choice!” He said he would rather choose a kind and loving person who would love him in spite of his age and falling health.
After Anna’s departure, the author misses her vivacious presence, the colors she added to his lonely, desolate and boring life. He could not resist calling her to consult on the pretense of a new book: The story of a sick middle-aged artist falling in love with a beautiful younger woman. Was it likely that young woman could fall in love with such an older artist? “ Could this story happen in real life?” He asked. Anna replied, “Why not? Of course, it is very possible and likely that she would”. To reaffirm the author asks again as to why she thinks it is likely or it was an interesting story? She replies: “Because she is kind, caring and sensitive and he too is compassionate and loving to her.” To ensure if she would love that person for the rest of her life, he repeats the question. She answers, “Why not?” At that sparkling moment the author confesses his real feelings of love and admiration for her and asks her if she will be happy with him for the rest of her life. Stunned and shocked she realized that for the fear of rejection and embarrassment the author had created a scenario in the façade of literature instead it was his real love for her. She joyfully and emotionally said yes and thereafter, from 1867 till his death 14 years later they lived as a married couple.“Dostoyevsky Reminiscences”is Anna’s memoir where she recalls how in spite of their differences in age, health, social backgrounds, the brilliant writer gave her respect, love and adoration till the very end! She joyously writes:“It’s great happiness to meet a person of different construction, dissimilar views and background to remain an original self, stand as a firm wall among irrationalities that we all have. Friendship lies in accepting contradictions we have rather than in our agreements.” That was the foundation of love, mutual respect and the life they led!Fulfilling mutual needs, respect and supporting each other it turned out an ideal version of love!
Scientific investigations confirm that some couples may continue to be deeply in love in 10 to 30 years of marriage. Schwartz, a researcher in Stony Brook study reports, “the MRI scans showed a pattern of activity in the participants’ dopamine reward systems was the same as that detected in the brains as an early-stage romantic love.” Their long-term marriage transitioned from passionate, romantic love to a more compassionate love. Sexual activity further increases oxytocin levels and activates the brain’s reward circuit, making couples desire each other more, the results indicated. Oxytocin, dopamine (“love chemicals”) are the brain chemical secretions in love responsible for feelings of pleasure. No wonder BP Koirala, the legendary, visionary writer asks: “ Is sex indispensable to love? Can a wife love an impotent husband? A story is emerging in my mind based upon these themes.” (October 12, 1952 Diary entry). Clearly sex is a significant part of conjugal love an earnest question the writer raises!
Paradoxically Virginia Woolf’s take is drastically opposite! She writes: “Life is not a grand adventure, but a series of small, insignificant moments, that love is not a fairy tale, but a fragile, fleeting emotion, that happiness is not a permanent state, but a rare, fleeting glimpse of something we can never hold onto. The horror of marriage lies in its dailiness. The truth in life : say four days out of seven- becomes automatic, but on the fifth day a bead of sensation forms which is all the fuller and more sensitive because of automatic customary unconscious days on either side. That is to say the years are marked by moments of great intensity, moments of vision. How can any relationship endure for any length of time?”
Impermanence is a way of life, Buddhism says!
Within Hinduism there are two diverse views on kama as desire is pessimistically presented as maya, an illusion of reality! ‘There is melancholic sadness at the very heart of kama” (Mahabharat).“The myth of romantic love creates a desire for perfection in lovers, and this creates a risk. The more we idealize a person, the more disheartened we grow when we get to know them. The sad truth is that human beings are imperfect and our yearning for perfection often kills love.“Where the myth fails, human love begins. Then we love a human being, not our dream, but a human being with flaws.”
"Sometimes people walk away
from love because it is so
beautiful that it terrifies them.
Sometimes they leave because
the connection shines a bright
light on their dark places and
they are not ready to work them through.
Sometimes they run away because
they are not developmentally
prepared to merge with another,
they have more individuation work
to do first. (Jeff Brown)
“I am that clumsy human,
always loving,
loving,
And loving.
And never,
Leaving." (Frida Kahlo)
Jeff Brown says, “Love can happen in a split second instantly, but bonding can take a long time. Not the end of a story. It’s just the first chapter.”
Love is what you make of it, how compatible you are, how much effort you put in bonding and respecting each other. And ultimately how you choose to see one another! Often chemistry rules!
