Have we forgotten how to love?
As some of us watched the love of our lives walk by us for the first time -- not always superficial, perhaps the way the smile, slightly crooked, nudged inside her face, or the way her voice carried across the mountains, echoing within our souls -- we felt some sort of something in our bones.
We rung out our hearts for the perfect words, so that they would litter haphazardly, incompetently, across a torn-off paper, unable to capture the ubiquitousness of what we felt in its entirety.
Instead, these love letters, and the letters and words which encompassed them, would stand guard against our true feelings, mixing up what we want to say with what we actually say.
Some of us held back, unable to decide what to do, not wishing to hurt ourselves. Some of us were persistent, grabbing for a hand that was as of yet unsure of grabbing back.
Until.
Until the clouds broke through, the Earth gave in, the ephemeral quality of what we felt was understood, cradled, and thrown back at us in a perfect encapsulation of two people becoming one.
Or until it rained till we were drenched in our own tears.
That’s how we used to see it anyway. In melodrama and cliché, but we felt what we felt, and there was no stopping two forces that were about to collide and become singular, or for them to ricochet off into different trajectories.
This was before social media and “the game,” before we had to play to win and the fear of missing out didn’t rule our lives. Before swipes and likes and one-night stands, before holding back became moving forward, before bases and home runs, before … before when?
Or so some say. Or maybe how we conduct our business has changed, but the rules are the same.
The way we love seems to have evolved, as Valentine’s Day heralds in an unprecedented number of couples holding hands in public, and so much more in private.
We love our country pretty much the same way: Say how great it is, tell each other it’s developing, getting richer, the economy is booming. But underneath, it’s become all a game, as corruption and problems rot us out from the inside, with each individual trying to get the most out of the relationship, be it more power, more money, or just plain more in general.
In whispers and under covers, we speak of the real problems. We curse the current government and its leaders while in public and print, we dedicate pages to their achievements and praise.
We defame our exes in front of a TV screen while, behind the scenes, we miss how good they were perhaps, or how kind. Or how they, at least, weren’t all that bad.
So, when a prominent and veteran journalist confesses in public in a talk-show of the mistakes he has made, brings out in the forefront what we were all thinking but were not allowed to say, he is hung out to dry and fed to the dogs.
He is branded as being anti-democracy, as a traitor to the nation. Charges are filed against him for sedition. He is asked to quit his post and deemed a traitor to the nation and his profession.
Really: How dare someone speak the truth?
In love, the truth isn’t much appreciated. Much like in love for our country, and politics. Someone actually tells the truth, and all hell breaks loose.
Shouldn’t we be, in all earnest, going back to the time when what we were was up in front of the world, ready to be accepted in all our imperfections? Since when did we become so accepting of pretense and imagery that we forgot that the truth, no matter how or where it came from, was always a prettier sight, and always more interesting?
Some will remember how we used to love this country, and how we felt could never be quenched by the timid conversations over dining tables, nibbling on some chicken bone at some dawaat at a friend’s house. We were fearless, our voices intrepid, our actions unapologetic.
Fiery passion made it impossible to do otherwise. But that is perhaps the problem. As the world grows older, so do we, and we learn much more than we can bear.
And telling someone how we actually feel, without being safe and sound inside the cocoons of our self-made bubbles, is a terrifying prospect.
Will they break our hearts? Will they deny that we exist? Will they make us feel small? And: Will they kill us, murder us, rape us? Will they kidnap our children? Will they ever leave us alone?
One does not mean to be nostalgic for a time in which one didn’t exist, but one wonders how that kind of a revolution came to be.
We loved our country much like we loved our lovers: With intensity, reverence, and an endless thirst. We mixed our flaws together, but we loved nonetheless, because what we loved was ours and we, theirs.
But times have since then changed. Vague words and insinuations rule the mind, and the heart lies forgotten somewhere, weeping needlessly alone. Truly, have we forgotten how to love?