#79 Love and Sufferings.
If there is meaning to life then definitely there is a meaning to the sufferings. Sufferings are an ineradicable part of life and those who choose to face it can survive anything. They have all the courage to live with it. The one who has answers to the "why?" for his existence can bear any "how?". You can be robbed of your belongings, everything that you possess, but no one can snatch from you the the freedom, the attitude one chooses in the most difficult of the times.
It does not really matter what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us. The meaning of life differs from man to man, moment to moment. Thus, it is not the same for every individual. Life is not vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life's tasks are also real and concrete. They form man's destiny which is unique to every individual.
Sometimes it takes a person from a completely different culture to show us how normalcy is a stupid word. People in the west are stunned by the effort we Indians put into making our meals everyday. Waking up every morning and preparing three full meals, which includes vegetables and pulses is completely alien to people in the west. What surprises me is the amount of love they have for the Indian food (see picture). If the taste is good, is it only the effort that is making them eat breads and semi-cooked meals? I am still looking for an exact answer, if you have one do let me know.
Experiencing the feeling of love brings a radical change in ones life, but sadly, our idea of love is incomplete. Love means accepting the dark and the light within each other, bound by the courage to grow through struggle into bliss. Our understanding of love has been hijacked and beguiled by its first distractingly moving moments. We have allowed our love stories to end way too early. We seem to know far too much about how love starts, and recklessly little about how it might continue. The word has grown freighted with negative connotations. We are used to loving others in return for what they can do for us, for their capacity to entertain, charm or soothe us. Yet babies can do precisely nothing. They teach us to give without expecting anything in return, simply because they need help badly & we are in a position to provide it.
The child teaches the adult something else about love: that genuine love should involve a constant attempt to interpret with maximal generosity what might be going on, at any time, beneath the surface of difficult and unappealing behaviour. How kind we would be if we managed to import even a little of this instinct into adult relationships– if here, too, we could look past the grumpiness and viciousness and recognize the fear, confusion and exhaustion which almost invariably underlie them. For me love equates to selflessness. What does it mean for you?
See you next weekend, until then have a great weekend :)
Cheers!
A FEW THINGS KEEPING ME AWAKE
Thread: How Visa Makes Money
YouTube: The Man Who Killed Millions To Save Billions
Song I am listening to: Put your hand in mine
Thought of the week: "Life should be vibrant spend it exploring your passions with the people you love."
MEME OF THE WEEK
SARCASTIC REFLECTION
Here are the last three posts if you were too occupied to read them -