I can’t remember if I have ever written this down anywhere before. But if I have not, then here it is.
We were trying to keep warm by sitting next to the heater in the kitchen, eating yogurt.It was still considered summer. But when you’ve lived all your life in a hot and humid tropical country, 15 degrees Celsius on a cloudy and windy afternoon is still very much considered ‘cold’ no matter what the local English folks said.
“It’s scary” he said to me.
“OF COURSE it’s scary. It’s your freaking HEART you’re putting on the line here.” I replied.
“What if she doesn’t like me back? What if she isn’t really interested in me at all?” he asked.
I knew what it was. It was fear. Fear of being hurt. The more you gave your heart to someone, to more vulnerable you were to them, and the more they could hurt you. A person’s capacity to hurt you will always be proportionate to the capacity in which you love them. To give people a chance to love you also means giving them a chance to hurt you. I guess it was another one of those things in life that always came in pairs of opposites. I think it’s for this reason that a lot of people stone their hearts and prevent themselves from falling in love, or if they do, not to fall too deeply. It’s a lesson in love we all eventually learn some day.
“That’s the way it is. Loving someone feels like you are literally ripping your heart out from your chest with your bare hands. You hold it gently and preciously with both hands. You gingerly offer it out in the open to the other person; it feels so fragile, so exposed. And the scariest part of it all is, you don’t know how the person whom you’re giving your heart to is going to treat it. Are they going to receive it with as much love and care as how you gave it? Will they trample all over it? Or will they just take it and unceremoniously chuck it aside? Will they truly know the preciousness of what they just received from you? Not only do you not know the answer to that, there’s nothing you can do even if you did. They will do as they will what you give.” …..
He kept silent for a while then laughed. “Hahaha…. I don’t think I’m going to forget how you just described it….”
I laughed back. I don’t think I could ever forget it too. It was actually the first time the two of us were talking about the subject of love in our then four year friendship.
“But I don’t think there’s any other way. If you want to love someone, and if you want to be loved, then this is the only way. You have to put your heart out there. How else will they ever get a chance to seize it if you don’t? No pain, no gain. No risk, no glory.”
"Hmmmmm... Yeah... I guess so..." came the reply.
"Don't worry too much la. At least she's responding. Which is ALWAYS a good sign. Go get'em!!" I gave him an encouraging pat on the back....
After that, the conversation drifted off to other things.......There's only so much of these sort of deep, heart to heart stuff two dudes can share in one sitting.
It is in our most basic instinct to want to protect ourselves from getting hurt. We wear shoes, we live under covered roofs, we invent seat belts, we stay away from dark alleys, we carry pepper sprays, we learn martial arts. In everything we do, there is always an underlining will to survive. And you survive by not getting yourself hurt. Yet, we still choose to love. We take a chance on love anyway, despite knowing risk of hurt, pain and even rejection. It goes against our instincts of protecting ourselves. If you look at it very carefully, love closely follows the pattern of madness. Even love itself makes no sense. It’s some abstract, intangible thingy that supposedly makes the earth go round. It floats in your heart and meddles with your brain. It often makes you do things that have no real benefit (and sometimes even harm) to yourself beyond feeling good. It makes everyone else (who isn’t infected with love) call you such a dumb ass for sacrificing so much of yourself. And all you can say to them is "You don't get it."... Of course they don't get it. Because it’s crazy that’s what it is. So why do we do it? Why do we prescribe to this madness?
Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the human version of the mad cow disease. It would explain why people in love can be stubborn as a cow when it came to their determination to love.
The only other thing I can think of, is that perhaps, deep deep down at some level of our existence, we believe that for all the madness it brings, for all the pain it carries with it, we believe in love. It will always be worth it. How can it not be? It was with love that each and every one of us were created. The love of God Himself, the love of our parents, the love of our friends and our family, the love we have for our fellow human being; these are all the reasons we are alive today. If love was the reason we first existed, then it surely has to be the reason we continue to exist. Love is the cornerstone of our existence.
That HAS to be it. It HAS to. Because if it's just mad cow disease... then we're all so so seriously screwed my dear.....
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