A Few Things Bright And Wonderful

Her breathing pattern changed when she saw him. If anything, it had only become more apparent than a year before. She was controlling herself then, holding on to the shards of conceived truth in her then present love. She was afraid of falling because she liked being in control. She checked herself, to prevent herself from losing what was dear to her.

To some, a few things are dear more than anything else. To some a lot of things are dear and to some, nothing is. The distinction between the latter two is rather hard because they, both of them, end up caring for nothing at all. It is very hard to hold on to numerous things all at once that are dear.

First kind of people have a clarity of thought and intent that lets them choose through an elaborate process of prioritizing, what are the few things that are precious to them. They hold on them with a fearful tenacity and they always seem to snatch them from the conniving situations and circumstances, snatching from the universe what they believe is rightfully theirs.

For some, like the woman in question here, the process is simple. It is just the ability truly feeling your emotions. Innumerable events, everyday, in their lives effect a zillion things. These people are aware of what affects their heart and soul through careful calibration of the emotion they feel when any incident occurs. Over a course of certain years, their experiences enrich them and they have clarity of what are the few things that matter to them. There is another kind of simplicity - simplemindedness - that allows people to determine the few things that are dear. They either accept what people / society tells them - for example their parents, brothers, sisters, teachers etc. They treat their words as the they were maktub - written in stone - and they follow them with a faith that is uncalibrated and blind. This is often more fierce and vehement in nature than the first category, because of its blindness. For the first category, the feelings and passions are moderated through the process of perceiving, analyzing and introspecting. The desire to hold on to something dear is very much present, but it can't compete with blind faith. Inability or blocking the ability to think, analyze, rationalize imparts suh vehemence, such force to their beliefs that they are often more tenacious and more driven by their few things dear. I would put all fundamentalists in this category.

However, the people in the second category are faced with one who is strongly opinionated and challenges their belief you will see them resort to repetition and fail at reasoning. You'll hear arguments of the nature:

"Why do you thing it (being the dear one) is important?"

"Because it is! Why not?"

You get the drift...

Another argument is that, more often than not, people calculate in their head what emotion they project. These are people who don't feel anything. I have known people who are emotionally paralyzed. One of them lost his sibling and did not know what to feel. Sometimes we block the interpretation of the true emotion from reaching our head. We then calculate "a best reaction" and superimpose it on what we actually felt but did not comprehend. It's a dilemma for these people if ever confronted with the question of what is dear to them.

I apologize for holding your thought with all the theory for so long. Returning to our girl. She held the control of her "self" as one of the few precious things in life. She had been in love. And when it broke her - I don't say her heart because that would be too frivolous- she stopped believing in love. It became a drug to her, inebriated by love, she lost herself in a world that she had created in her dreams.  A part of her was trapped forever in that dream. The dream shattered and that part of her was inaccessible to her forever. She searched for it but could never find it. So she wrote love off from her life. Oh, such a foolish thing to do.  When he came into her life, she had convinced herself that she can lead a perfectly normal life and arrange for her happiness by having a kid in the future with a man she believed to be simple, honest, kind and sincere. A harmless man. A man she did not fear. A man who would never hurt because he could never hurt her. She was immune to him. She had made a decision of self-preservation to hold onto something that was so absolutely, splendidly dear to her. Control. Not on external elements. But her "self".

It went on fine for as long as it could. It went on fine, until she was faced with a question that challenged her beliefs. It went on fine till she could ignore the question. It went on fine, until it could no longer. It went on fine, until she met him.

The impact on her heart, since she was true to it, was palpable. She felt her breathing become faster, her knees willing to snap beneath her weight. She looked down, averting his gaze, trying to avoid feeling what she felt. Trying to convince herself that this is not what she truly feels. That it is but a passing emotion.

She tried to enjoy what she felt when she looked at him. As a fascination, a passing infatuation. She let it go on for a week. After that she got scared.

She processed what she felt. Analysed and introspected. It was established, thus, that this man was dear to her. But he caused her to lose control of her self. She was faced with a traumatising decision - to let go of one thing dear for another.

Do not let that thought cheat you into believing that it's easy. People who understand what's dear to them do not let go of it so easy. She knew she had to fight to protect what's dear to her, but fight who. No matter how she chose - she would win and she would lose. How could she make peace with that.

That question begot her inaction. She resigned herself. She weighed the consequences of both decisions and calculated the amount of hurt, they would generate - internal and external.

What's sacred about that way of looking at things is the absolute renunciation of the self , of happiness. Almost saint like. Isn't it? It is also impossible for a human being. She realized after a month of travelling, meditating with saints of Aurodham, Auroville (both in Pondicherry), drunk monks of Bhutan and a monastery in Korea. This is the part of her life which she calls "Confusion". No brainer that one!

She returned to her routine life with one more understanding of her self and of human nature, if you allow for my idiosyncrasy to such generalizations. She couldn't be fair to anyone she had "Arranged" notional happiness with, for she could not spread joy/happiness if she was pained herself. If she was hurt and sad, she would just bring pain and misery, through her inability to care, upon all the stakeholders involved.

She decided if she could severe the ties with this "Arranged" man, she would in fact be doing him a huge favour. He could, after the initial hurt, move onto cherish something more than just a friend- she was giving herself and him, both, a shot as finding love. At knowing true happiness.

She traded her one thing bright and wonderful for another, opening her heart to be moved by this man who had so touched her.

She moved the curtains of her room to let the sun shine in, a drop of rain fell on her cheek and she let it roll to her lip where she licked it off. The new clouds on the sunny day gave birth to a third element of beauty that afternoon. A rainbow formed in her view from her balcony. And she sat down with her cup of coffee and her favorite novel. Getting drenched in the rain, soaked in the warmth of the sun and letting the beauty around her sink deep into her heart.