Is love a canvas furnished by nature?
Love is a strange phenomenon. Like wind, which is not visible to the
human eye, it can be felt. These two marvels have very much in common
and have relative effects when they react on human beings. A cool breeze
cools the body and calms the mind. On the contrary, turbulent whirlwinds
can ruffle and bring about drastic effects.
Opinions on Love vary from parental, brotherly/sisterly, patriotic,
spiritual, carnal and love for animals/pets. Love has no boundaries, no
limits and no hatred. All religions advise people to love others; they
do indeed depending on their personal point of view.
Eminent personalities have come out with various definitions on love.
Rabindranath Tagore found it comfortable to analyse the issue by
stating: "I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless
times, in life after life, in age after age forever."
Henry Van Dyke in a slightly different version quoted: "Time is too
slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for
those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who
love, time is eternity".
On a spiritual dimension, Victor Hugo's "reduction of the universe to
a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, is love."
Philosophically expressing Henry Miller said: "The only thing we
never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of
is love".
Charles Dickens in his own literal panache articulated that to love
means "having a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires,
and a touch that never hurts", whereas Goethe opined, "Love as an ideal
thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal
never goes unpunished". So all in all, "Is Love a canvas furnished by
Nature and embroidered by imagination," as Voltaire put it?
Love
Can the real nature of love be pinned down to anything one can learn
out of two romantic lines in a greeting card? Can love be explained or
analysed under a microscope? We may use all the talents and charms in
the world and spend hours on end pondering over the philosophical nature
of this magic human reaction, yet we all fail to agree upon uniquely
being individuals who experience love differently and indeed having
numerous ways of showing it.
Valentine mythology
Genuine love demands no ethnicity or age. Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand
its own way. Love is not irritable, and keeps no record of when it has
been wronged. Love never gives up, never loses faith, but always hopeful
and endures through every circumstance.
In modem times February 14 is regarded as Lovers' Day or Valentine's
Day which is very much associated with mutual exchange of love notes in
the form of greeting cards symbolising heart-shaped outline with the
figure of Cupid. Cupid is regarded as Aphrodite's son Eros who resembles
a child-like winged deity in Greek Mythology.
Valentine's Day has many connotations. One belief is that St.
Valentine was a Roman who was martyred for refusing to give up
Christianity. The fable also verbalises that St. Valentine left a
farewell note for the jailer's daughter signing on it as, "from Your
Valentine".
Other aspects of the narrative pronounce that St. Valentine served as
a Priest at the Temple during the reign of Emperor Claudius and, in 496
AD, he was jailed for defiance. Later Pope Gelasius set aside February
14 as a day of commemoration for St. Valentine.
Another widespread old legend is that young women in the city used to
place their names in a big urn on February 14 when eligible bachelors
picked names out of the pot to become paired with the chosen woman for
one year. In most cases such couples often ended up in matrimony.
By the middle of the 18th century it became a common denominator for
friends and lovers in all social strata to exchange small tokens of
affection or handwritten notes. With the advancement of printing
technology by the end of the century, greeting cards replaced the
original handwritten letters which extended one's feelings and emotions.
It is estimated that over a billion Valentine cards exchange hands on
a single day in each year throughout the world making the post offices
and greeting card manufacturers richer because people spend even more
money to avoid feeling disappointed, inadequate or insecure.
Some may decide to send Valentine cards to secret admirers
anonymously. Couldn't it then turn into a sad affair and become
illuminating proof of flashing a shiny heart in a greeting card right in
the recipient's face, and the whole scheme becoming a big money making
con wrapped up in glossy paper?
Sycophacy
We all are basically human beings and no one can deny the fact that
we all enjoy an overdose of sycophancy from time to time, and indulge in
mythical daydreams. We may try to be ebullient on this special day being
showered with romantic cards, bouquets of red roses, or a single rose,
boxes of chocolate or going to four star hotels or up market restaurants
to spend a fortune on eating out and getting drunk like fish with Gal,
Pol, Wine, Bloody Mary, Screw Driver or Shiva's Regal.
For a different kind of Valentine, it could be yet another occasion
to hit a dance floor, on the premise of Valentine's Day, and enjoy a bit
of pelvic thrust in romantic dim light and say it is just what the Cupid
ordered!
But let's be realistic and if anyone is induced to rely on a single
day of the year to feel that 'love is in the air' momentarily and can
live 'happily ever after' then one could be far way off the track in
reality.
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