To the one I love,
What if on Valentine ’s Day, everyone becomes blind and all roses suddenly lose their scent? How can I let you know that I love you aside from saying the words? How can I possibly touch your heart if you can never see the roses I am giving you? How can I find that beautiful rose if all I can see is darkness? What would happen to my dreams of leaving red and white roses on your bed so that you’d dream romantic dreams when you go to sleep? What would happen to my dreams of surprising you with a romantic shower of rose petals?
In the dark, in our blindness, there will be no romantic sunsets for us to behold. No majestic mountains and pristine seas for us to view. No candlelight to glow and glimmer between two dining lovers. No glistening stars for us to look up to in the serenity of the night. So where will I take you?
I’ll take you to a place where the cold wind blows. Be it a place where beautiful trees stand with utmost grandeur amidst a sea of shimmering green meadows, or a bleak, dry valley devoid of beauty and vegetation. For it will not matter what we shall see. Only what we shall feel. The wind’s hissing shall be the bright, blinding glare of sunlight. The gust, the blow of the wind, the stirring of the strands of our windblown hair, the tingling of our senses as the chillingly cool wind pricks our skin, they shall all be the sun rays that shower us with warmth. And when the wind seems to run out of breath, when its furious hissing becomes a soft, soothing murmur, that will be our romantic sunset. Maybe it won’t be as romantic as the breathtaking sunsets we have already seen in our lives. But what better thing can we have? What else can I offer you to make you feel the intensity of our romance? If I can’t offer you visual splendor, I’ll offer you the best I can. I’ll offer you the splendor of a beautiful feeling. If we can’t see the beauty around us, why can’t we just opt to feel all the beauty we failed to feel deeply enough because we were too busy seeing?
Come to think of it, my love. There must have been a time when no one saw the romance in sunsets. But we learned. Everyone learned to believe that there is romance in beauty. And that a beautiful sunset is a romantic sunset. So believe me, we shall also learn. We shall learn to feel the romance in each beautiful feeling. We will learn to feel romantic when we feel the wind. And let us begin the learning today. So we can start feeling the sweetness today.
As a gift, I can not give you roses. But I will give you the rain. When I hear the rain pouring, when the raindrops begin to knock on our roofs, I’ll know that my spring has come. So I’ll take you outside. And we’ll feel the coldness together. We’ll embrace and feel the countless raindrops slithering between my skin and yours. I know there won’t be a pleasant scent for us to relish. But at least we’ll have something intense and pleasant to feel. We’ll feel each other shiver. And that shiver, that little manifestation of a quiet inner suffering, that will be the assurance that this gift comes from the heart.
As for my dreams of showering you with rose petals, I will never give that up. Though blind, though handicapped, I will search the ground for every light little thing that can fly and flutter in midair, little things that will feel like rose petals when they fall on you. Be they merely torn paper, leaves or plastic garbage. And when I have gathered enough, I will throw them all up. So they can fall upon the two of us. Just like rose petals. And as they fall, I’ll hold your hand and we shall reminisce. We shall imagine. We shall believe that these light, little things are red and beautiful. For when our eyes can no longer see, we’ll see through our memories.
Memories. They are what can turn the ugly beautiful, the despicable endearing, and the painful soothing. One day we’ll find ourselves walking along the banks of a stinking, polluted river. But because that river is the same river we saw together each day as we went home, we’ll stop to relish the river’s putrid smell. Because that smell, no matter how offensive, will flood our minds with beautiful memories. Beautiful images that we shall never see again. One night, the hounds will shatter the night’s tranquility with their howls. But we shall not be disturbed. We shall not be angered by those maddening sounds. Because through the howling hounds, we’ll know that the moon and the stars are up there, glowing, glistening, existing. One night, we’ll find ourselves standing dangerously close to a fire. We shall not see its light. But we shall feel its warmth. The same warmth that shall remind us of the romantic candlelight and the glorious bonfires we stared at quietly on the countless nostalgic nights of our past. And because we’ll want to feel more, to remember more of the romantic past, we’ll extend our hands towards that warmth. And we’ll let the fire burn our palms until we could no longer bear the pain. Yes, it shall be painful. But can anyone blame us for wanting to feel this much?
One day, perhaps, in my search for light, little things that feel like rose petals; I’ll find a priceless treasure on the ground. As I try to pick up something, I’ll be pricked by the thing’s thorns. Because it is a real rose. And I will rejoice because of that miracle. In my joy I’ll grip the flower’s stem tightly, letting the thorns pierce my skin until the blood flows out. And as soon as I find you, I’ll hand you my gift. A rose in the dark. Incredulous, you will hesitate to reach for it. But because you love me, you’ll touch my hand, and feel the blood that drenches it. The same blood that had come out of the wounds caused by the rose. The same blood that proves to you that I have a real rose in my hand. The same blood that lets you know how much I love you. Then, reluctantly, you’ll touch the soft petals, and then slide your hand to the thorny stem, gripping it, letting your palm bleed as much as mine does. Letting your blood fuse with mine as it drips down the flower’s stem, and then down to your arms. We’ll bleed, feel each other bleed and find bliss in each other’s bleeding. We will grip the stem even more tightly, let the blood flow out more profusely. And then we’ll suffer, we’ll cry and find bliss in each other’s weeping. In another life, such pleasure would have been deemed sick. But can anyone blame us for wanting to feel this much? Can anyone stop us from loving this much? From being this passionate? For hurting ourselves this much because the pain brings back ethereally beautiful memories? Because this is the only way to feel our love at its deepest? As we cry, we shall embrace. And not care how much pain we have to bear, or inflict on each other, just to experience this much love.
Sometimes, for love to be truly passionate, the lovers will have to suffer and bleed.
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Every Warrior Wants To Go Home (The Underside of Chauvinism Part II)
Even as a child, I have already felt that fire of manhood, that longing to be in the battlefield, to slay the enemy no matter how many wounds I’d have to endure. And being in the battlefield didn’t always mean that I had to grasp a sword. The “battlefield” was any arena where I could excel. When I found out that I could write, I began spending every day of my life trying to improve my writing skills. So that I could excel. So that I could win. And more importantly, so that I could defeat someone. The same thing happened when I realized that somehow I can excel in the physical sciences. Like every other man, I have dreamed of being better than the rest. And like the many little boys who never would have bought a book by an unknown author named Joann Kathleen Rowling but might have thought otherwise if she used the androgynous pseudonym J. K. Rowling, I grew up nurturing an irrational desire to be superior to women.
After 26 years of my life, I finally found out why I’ve always wanted to win my own little wars and why I waged them in the first place. All this time, I’ve been marching repeatedly to the battlefields of life because I hungered for the beautiful feeling of coming home. And I wanted someone to be there when I come home wounded. It was never my instinct, as it has never been an instinct of any man, to dream of being superior to women. But I did want to be superior to women anyway. Because there is nothing more natural than a man’s instinctive desire to take care of a woman. I wanted to be superior because I was afraid that no woman would ever let me take care of her if I were inferior to them.
Ours is an era of monumental social changes. And monumental shortcomings of a society rushing to reform itself. In this era, it is wrong to believe that men should be superior to women. Gender Equality is a virtue that must be upheld by any respectable person. Yet in this grossly romantic world, it is still perfectly okay for a woman to say, “I want to find a lover who’s much stronger and more successful than I am, someone who can be proud to say someday that he only had all those achievements because he was inspired by me.” A woman who says that is a romantic, deemed by society as wise and sophisticated. But if a man says the same thing in public, he is a shameless gold-digger, period!
When a poor boy who grows up to become a millionaire rescues his beloved woman from the abominable pit of poverty, he is called a romantic. But when a poor boy escapes poverty after marrying a wealthy, beautiful woman, no matter how sincere his intentions are, no matter how pure his love is, he will never be called a romantic. He will only earn that description when he moves heaven and earth to match her success.
Everywhere, you hear men being taught to give way to the more competent women. And in those same places, men are being taught that women will only fall for the man who can outdo them. It is right for a man to accept defeat to a woman. But it is also still right for a man to accept that defeat with a deep bitterness. The princess should be free to go as far as she wants and as far as her talents can take her. But if a man wants to be her prince, he still has to be one step ahead of her.
I understand why the early warriors had been so fearless. When your happiness as a man—your hope of being loved by a woman—rests on your capability to prove your virility through war, why should you hesitate to pick up your weapons and go to war? If you’re a man today and your happiness greatly depends on how you can turn yourself into an adorable prince—someone who has the right to rescue a princess—why would you not do anything to become a prince? And if being a prince meant that you have to be superior to the romantic princess, why would you not do anything to be superior to women? Love drives heroes to fight their noble wars. It is the one thing that drrives poor boys to become great men. And it is the hunger for that love that forces the most kind-hearted men to become chauvinist pigs.
In the offices and institutions, the battle for gender equality is being won. More and more women are gaining access to career opportunities that had long been unjustly beyond their reach. But in the homes, on the streets, in the neighborhoods, the pall of defeat looms. Marriages are in turmoil because men can’t stand the pressure of being less successful than their wives. Somehow, they think that their failure to match their wives’ success is tantamount to impotence. The women, on the other hand, feel disappointed by their husbands’ failure to become the admirable princes of their dreams. And even if both the insecure husband and the powerful wife are happy in their home, when they walk on the street, they will still be mocked. He for being a gold-digger and she for being naïve.
Gender Equality is not just about the women having the right to become warriors. It’s also about the men having the right to stay home and take care of the children when the woman goes to war. It is about the man’s embrace being as sweet as that of any woman when the fearless female warrior comes home bleeding. It is not just about the women proving that they are stronger. It is also about the men humbly accepting that they are weaker and the rest of society not ridiculing them for that. It’s not just about letting the women reach the top. It is also about the men at the bottom being free to love the women at the top. It’s not just a matter of letting the wives become superior to their husbands. It is a matter of assuring each husband that no matter how inferior he is to his wife, he could still take care of her, she could still rest her head on his shoulder, he could still caress her gently as if she was the most fragile thing in this world. Gender Equality is not just about success. It’s about acceptance. It is not just a matter of letting the men and the women compete fairly. More than anything, it is a matter of letting the men and the women love freely.
I have always been fascinated by the great men who had accomplished amazing achievements because they were inspired by the women they loved. John Keats being inspired by Fanny Brawne, Petrarch by Laura, Jose Rizal by Leonor Rivera, Percy Byshe Shelly by his wife Mary and Pierre Curie by Marie (The last two men, incidentally, were outdone by their wives.). And I wonder, how many women had been inspired by men to accomplish great things but were never able to do as they had dreamed because they lived in chauvinistic times? How much better could this world have become if only those ambitious women were free to spread their wings? How much more meaningful would the lives of those men have been if they knew they were the inspiration of those great women? Maybe someday, men, like women, will feel pride in just being the inspiration of their successful spouses. For the good of humanity, that day will have to come soon.
Today, the warriors are still marching to the battlefields of life. Some of them are men, some women. Some will be triumphant. Some will go home wounded. But whatever happens in the battlefield, they’ll all want to do what matters most afterwards. Be they men or women, triumphant or wounded, they will all want to come home.
May all the world’s warriors go home in peace.
After 26 years of my life, I finally found out why I’ve always wanted to win my own little wars and why I waged them in the first place. All this time, I’ve been marching repeatedly to the battlefields of life because I hungered for the beautiful feeling of coming home. And I wanted someone to be there when I come home wounded. It was never my instinct, as it has never been an instinct of any man, to dream of being superior to women. But I did want to be superior to women anyway. Because there is nothing more natural than a man’s instinctive desire to take care of a woman. I wanted to be superior because I was afraid that no woman would ever let me take care of her if I were inferior to them.
Ours is an era of monumental social changes. And monumental shortcomings of a society rushing to reform itself. In this era, it is wrong to believe that men should be superior to women. Gender Equality is a virtue that must be upheld by any respectable person. Yet in this grossly romantic world, it is still perfectly okay for a woman to say, “I want to find a lover who’s much stronger and more successful than I am, someone who can be proud to say someday that he only had all those achievements because he was inspired by me.” A woman who says that is a romantic, deemed by society as wise and sophisticated. But if a man says the same thing in public, he is a shameless gold-digger, period!
When a poor boy who grows up to become a millionaire rescues his beloved woman from the abominable pit of poverty, he is called a romantic. But when a poor boy escapes poverty after marrying a wealthy, beautiful woman, no matter how sincere his intentions are, no matter how pure his love is, he will never be called a romantic. He will only earn that description when he moves heaven and earth to match her success.
Everywhere, you hear men being taught to give way to the more competent women. And in those same places, men are being taught that women will only fall for the man who can outdo them. It is right for a man to accept defeat to a woman. But it is also still right for a man to accept that defeat with a deep bitterness. The princess should be free to go as far as she wants and as far as her talents can take her. But if a man wants to be her prince, he still has to be one step ahead of her.
I understand why the early warriors had been so fearless. When your happiness as a man—your hope of being loved by a woman—rests on your capability to prove your virility through war, why should you hesitate to pick up your weapons and go to war? If you’re a man today and your happiness greatly depends on how you can turn yourself into an adorable prince—someone who has the right to rescue a princess—why would you not do anything to become a prince? And if being a prince meant that you have to be superior to the romantic princess, why would you not do anything to be superior to women? Love drives heroes to fight their noble wars. It is the one thing that drrives poor boys to become great men. And it is the hunger for that love that forces the most kind-hearted men to become chauvinist pigs.
In the offices and institutions, the battle for gender equality is being won. More and more women are gaining access to career opportunities that had long been unjustly beyond their reach. But in the homes, on the streets, in the neighborhoods, the pall of defeat looms. Marriages are in turmoil because men can’t stand the pressure of being less successful than their wives. Somehow, they think that their failure to match their wives’ success is tantamount to impotence. The women, on the other hand, feel disappointed by their husbands’ failure to become the admirable princes of their dreams. And even if both the insecure husband and the powerful wife are happy in their home, when they walk on the street, they will still be mocked. He for being a gold-digger and she for being naïve.
Gender Equality is not just about the women having the right to become warriors. It’s also about the men having the right to stay home and take care of the children when the woman goes to war. It is about the man’s embrace being as sweet as that of any woman when the fearless female warrior comes home bleeding. It is not just about the women proving that they are stronger. It is also about the men humbly accepting that they are weaker and the rest of society not ridiculing them for that. It’s not just about letting the women reach the top. It is also about the men at the bottom being free to love the women at the top. It’s not just a matter of letting the wives become superior to their husbands. It is a matter of assuring each husband that no matter how inferior he is to his wife, he could still take care of her, she could still rest her head on his shoulder, he could still caress her gently as if she was the most fragile thing in this world. Gender Equality is not just about success. It’s about acceptance. It is not just a matter of letting the men and the women compete fairly. More than anything, it is a matter of letting the men and the women love freely.
I have always been fascinated by the great men who had accomplished amazing achievements because they were inspired by the women they loved. John Keats being inspired by Fanny Brawne, Petrarch by Laura, Jose Rizal by Leonor Rivera, Percy Byshe Shelly by his wife Mary and Pierre Curie by Marie (The last two men, incidentally, were outdone by their wives.). And I wonder, how many women had been inspired by men to accomplish great things but were never able to do as they had dreamed because they lived in chauvinistic times? How much better could this world have become if only those ambitious women were free to spread their wings? How much more meaningful would the lives of those men have been if they knew they were the inspiration of those great women? Maybe someday, men, like women, will feel pride in just being the inspiration of their successful spouses. For the good of humanity, that day will have to come soon.
Today, the warriors are still marching to the battlefields of life. Some of them are men, some women. Some will be triumphant. Some will go home wounded. But whatever happens in the battlefield, they’ll all want to do what matters most afterwards. Be they men or women, triumphant or wounded, they will all want to come home.
May all the world’s warriors go home in peace.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Bless Me God For I Have Loved
Dear God,
A lover is just a selfish animal out to satisfy its own instinctive needs, I once thought. A man blissfully relishing a woman’s embrace is no different from a heartless lion feasting on a gazelle’s entrails. Both creatures derive pleasure from their respective acts. Both acts were committed as a result of biological impulses that are beyond the creatures’ control. A lemming who throws itself over a cliff just because its instinct tells it to do so is a fool. A man who deprives himself of sleep and pleasure just to make a girl happy because his infatuated heart compels him to do so is a fool. An eagle that flies across an unfamiliar ocean to look for prey without knowing how far its flight would take it is doomed to run out of breath and plunge to the sea one day. A man who pledges to dedicate all his life to a woman without knowing how much that woman would ask him to give or how little he would get in return, without asking how long he would have to keep spreading his vast wings in a long flight called passion, is a mindless daredevil bound to lose his wings and plunge into the deep ocean of loneliness one day.
As I lay in bed one lonely night, staring through the windows’ translucent curtains, watching the full moon gradually descend from the zenith to the horizon, while the crickets hummed in a melancholic chorus—as if attempting to soothe a restless, long-suffering creature--, while the nocturnal birds agonizingly chirped and flapped their wings in the dark, while the disturbed felines affectionately exchanged long, mild purrs, while the romantic wind strummed the countless leaves to create a powerful, musical rustle, I finally found myself confronting the truth. I was the animal. I was irrational. I was the daredevil and the fool. I was crossing an unknown ocean in the dark, running out of breath but still flapping my wounded wings. For despite the suffering and the pain, the follies and irrationalities, the love in me was still strong enough to sustain this crazy flight. Because I was in love. Because I was willing to go through more pain for that love.
Why do things have to be that way, God? Didn’t you teach us to love because you wanted us, your beloved children, to be happy in this world? Yet for love, for the one thing that is the ultimate source of all happiness, we have to suffer so much.
How does happiness begin? Through contentment, of course. How does contentment begin? Through love. And how, my God, does love begin? It always starts with a belief.
If you hand a colorful handkerchief to a wounded, dying soldier without saying anything to him, do you think he’d even care to reach for that piece of cloth? Would he spend the last few seconds of his life forcing himself to move his limb despite the pain he’s have to bear in doing so? Absolutely not. But tell him that the handkerchief you’re giving him is the ultimate tribute of his countrymen to his heroism, make him believe that that handkerchief is the most important thing that can be had by a fallen warrior, and I assure you, that soldier would be more than happy to accept your gift. And he would die a blissful death. Love happens in a similar way. It happened to me that way.
Before a man can fall in love, he must start convincing himself that one woman is better than any other. He needs to believe that she is the best gift that God can give any man, that she is more important than anything in this world. He must build a wall that separates her from all the other women, a wall that separates the perfect girl from the others, the paragon from the ordinary diamonds. Because without these beliefs, there wouldn’t be any love. Without them, there wouldn’t be any special pleasure in being embraced by her; there would be no bliss in being kissed by her, no extraordinary happiness in knowing that she cares. Without these beliefs her embrace, her kiss and her care would mean no more than those of a stranger. And there lies the man’s tragedy.
No man is perfect. No man is omniscient like you, my God. That’s why it impossible for me to always know correctly whether a woman is your gift to me…or your gift to someone else. All I can do is to make a guess--to gamble. Yes, unbelievably, the search for love starts with one dangerous gamble. And when that guess proves to be wrong, when the gamble fails to pay off, I would have to pay dearly. Because I would have to destroy all the beliefs I have held on to about her. I would have to destroy the wall that separates her from the rest of the women, the wall that I myself built.
A lot of people say that no man should cry over one woman because there are millions more out there who can replace her. Right. But for a passionate lover, those millions of women are almost impossible to see. Why? Because by the time a man’s heart bleeds for a woman, he has already built that impervious wall which separates her beloved girl from the rest of humanity, the same wall that kept him from believing that there’s someone better out there, the wall that guarantees his perpetual fidelity to her.
“Should I destroy that wall?” I asked myself. Of course I should! And I certainly could. But how easy would it be for anyone to destroy something he had worked so hard for to build? Would it be easy for you, my God, to destroy this universe that you created for us? Would it be easy for Leonardo Da Vinci to burn his Mona Lisa? Would it be easy for Shah Jahan to demolish the Taj Mahal? Damn! That wall was my masterpiece. That was a monument to the greatest bliss that I could possibly have in this life. And you expect to just destroy it? But unfortunately, I just had to.
I know it’s possible to have a romantic relationship with a woman without having those beliefs and without having to build that wall. But that relationship would be devoid of love. And because of that, it would be devoid of happiness as well. What message are you trying to give me, God? Are you trying to tell me that your children ought not to search for the kind of happiness that I had searched for? That we are better off choosing no to love just to avoid getting hurt? Or are you telling me to moderate my love so I could also moderate my pain at the cost of moderating my happiness?
If you want all of us to love less and suffer less, why the hell do you make love so tempting? And why do you keep telling us to love one another? To all my questions, your answer is nothing but silence. I assume it’s because you want me to find the answers from deep within myself. Well, I don’t know if this is the right one but this is the only answer that my heart can give—you want me to realize that love is the source of the ultimate happiness but the ultimate happiness can only be had if one is willing to take the risk of having to bear the ultimate pain. Loving a woman makes it possible for a man to feel bliss in her embrace. But it also guarantees that the man shall shed tears when she leaves him. Loving a child makes it possible for a parent to be happy even when doing the most backbreaking tasks. But it also guarantees that the parent shall grieve painfully when the child dies. It is simply impossible to be totally happy without love. And it is impossible to love without having the courage to bear the worst pain.
Is that really how you always wanted things to be? Is that how love is supposed to work? Because if that’s how you intended things to be, I just can’t help but think of you as a psychopath! Yes, my God, a psychopath. When you tell us to love and be brave enough to suffer for the loss of that love, you are a psychopath who aims a gun at a child, tells the child to build a sandcastle and, if the sand castle crumbles or if it turns out to be not beautiful enough for him, shoots the child in the head. That’s exactly what you do. You tell us to build our sandcastles of love, and if we fail to build the perfect sandcastle, when we fail to find the right love, you shoot us in the head with your bullets of pain. But if we succeed in building the sandcastle that can impress you, we become extremely happy. We celebrate and shed tears of joy. Because we know that you won’t shoot us. The love you gave us creates the ultimate happiness. But that happiness is just a happiness in knowing that we shall not bleed. And if we know that we can’t bleed for someone, if we know that we can’t shed tears for someone, we know that we are not in love. Bliss simply can’t exist without the threat of sorrow.
And I can’t truly love without you poking the cold gun of loneliness against my head.
Having heard everything I said, you must be wondering why I’m still talking to you, why I still believe in you. You wanna know why? Because it feels good to know that someone up there can be hurt by my blasphemous words! Because it feels good to believe that at least there’s one person out there who bleeds for me. And if you bleed for me, it means….It means that I don’t have to bleed so much after all.
Damn it! I’m fooling myself. But isn’t happiness just an art of fooling oneself? Two soldiers go to war. One believes the war will be won. The other believes otherwise. They both die before the war ends. Who do you think will have lived a happier wartime life by the time their lives end? A man and a woman get married and stay together for fifty years. The man loves the woman and believes that she loves him, too. The woman doesn’t love the man, period. By the time they die, who do you think will have had a happier life between the man and the woman?
I want to be rational. But what’s the point in being rational anyway? Why do people choose to be rational in the first place? When a person decides which career to pursue, why should he carefully weigh his options? When a woman decides whether or not she should accept a marriage proposal, why does she have to think about it thoroughly? Why does she have to listen to reason? When the prehistoric men were deciding how to hunt down a beast, why did they have to be rational about their plans? No matter how you look at it, the ultimate aim of rationality is survival. But what’s so good about survival? Do animals strive to survive just to feed? Or do they also relish the pleasure of being able to feed? Do people struggle to survive just to spend another day struggling to survive? Or do they do so because they want to love…and be happy because of that love? When there’s no love there to be felt, when survival does not promise happiness and survival is all that rationality can offer, what the hell is so rational about being rational?
Why hadn’t I thought about that last question at an earlier point in my life? Why the hell did I have to be so rational in the first place? What were all those dreams for? What were all those sufferings for? What were all those sacrifices of mine for if I’m gonna pass up on every opportunity to…satisfy my primitive instinct—the one that compels me to want to care for someone and feel that someone cares for me?
One more time I shall try not to be too rational. One more time I shall fool myself. Because I now choose to believe that there is a divine reason for all this pain. I choose to believe, shamelessly, that there is something good that can come out of this emotional hell. That the universe still follows a divine, though not necessarily perfect, order. And you, my God, are the personification of that order. That’s why still believe in you. Even when you are silent. I have no proof that you exist. I have no proof that you don’t. But rather than be an agnostic, I’ll just take a gamble on you. I am making a guess, the same way I do when I begin to fall in love.
So now, my God, I beg you to forgive me for my blasphemies. For no matter how much I want to punish you, I still am willing to accept that you are far more powerful than me. I still am willing to believe that you can teach me to build the perfect sandcastle of love.
Bless me God for I am beginning to lose my faith. Bless me God for I am breaking down. Bless me, for I need badly need the strength to begin the quest for happiness anew. Bless me, God, for I have loved.
Your child,
Ernest
A lover is just a selfish animal out to satisfy its own instinctive needs, I once thought. A man blissfully relishing a woman’s embrace is no different from a heartless lion feasting on a gazelle’s entrails. Both creatures derive pleasure from their respective acts. Both acts were committed as a result of biological impulses that are beyond the creatures’ control. A lemming who throws itself over a cliff just because its instinct tells it to do so is a fool. A man who deprives himself of sleep and pleasure just to make a girl happy because his infatuated heart compels him to do so is a fool. An eagle that flies across an unfamiliar ocean to look for prey without knowing how far its flight would take it is doomed to run out of breath and plunge to the sea one day. A man who pledges to dedicate all his life to a woman without knowing how much that woman would ask him to give or how little he would get in return, without asking how long he would have to keep spreading his vast wings in a long flight called passion, is a mindless daredevil bound to lose his wings and plunge into the deep ocean of loneliness one day.
As I lay in bed one lonely night, staring through the windows’ translucent curtains, watching the full moon gradually descend from the zenith to the horizon, while the crickets hummed in a melancholic chorus—as if attempting to soothe a restless, long-suffering creature--, while the nocturnal birds agonizingly chirped and flapped their wings in the dark, while the disturbed felines affectionately exchanged long, mild purrs, while the romantic wind strummed the countless leaves to create a powerful, musical rustle, I finally found myself confronting the truth. I was the animal. I was irrational. I was the daredevil and the fool. I was crossing an unknown ocean in the dark, running out of breath but still flapping my wounded wings. For despite the suffering and the pain, the follies and irrationalities, the love in me was still strong enough to sustain this crazy flight. Because I was in love. Because I was willing to go through more pain for that love.
Why do things have to be that way, God? Didn’t you teach us to love because you wanted us, your beloved children, to be happy in this world? Yet for love, for the one thing that is the ultimate source of all happiness, we have to suffer so much.
How does happiness begin? Through contentment, of course. How does contentment begin? Through love. And how, my God, does love begin? It always starts with a belief.
If you hand a colorful handkerchief to a wounded, dying soldier without saying anything to him, do you think he’d even care to reach for that piece of cloth? Would he spend the last few seconds of his life forcing himself to move his limb despite the pain he’s have to bear in doing so? Absolutely not. But tell him that the handkerchief you’re giving him is the ultimate tribute of his countrymen to his heroism, make him believe that that handkerchief is the most important thing that can be had by a fallen warrior, and I assure you, that soldier would be more than happy to accept your gift. And he would die a blissful death. Love happens in a similar way. It happened to me that way.
Before a man can fall in love, he must start convincing himself that one woman is better than any other. He needs to believe that she is the best gift that God can give any man, that she is more important than anything in this world. He must build a wall that separates her from all the other women, a wall that separates the perfect girl from the others, the paragon from the ordinary diamonds. Because without these beliefs, there wouldn’t be any love. Without them, there wouldn’t be any special pleasure in being embraced by her; there would be no bliss in being kissed by her, no extraordinary happiness in knowing that she cares. Without these beliefs her embrace, her kiss and her care would mean no more than those of a stranger. And there lies the man’s tragedy.
No man is perfect. No man is omniscient like you, my God. That’s why it impossible for me to always know correctly whether a woman is your gift to me…or your gift to someone else. All I can do is to make a guess--to gamble. Yes, unbelievably, the search for love starts with one dangerous gamble. And when that guess proves to be wrong, when the gamble fails to pay off, I would have to pay dearly. Because I would have to destroy all the beliefs I have held on to about her. I would have to destroy the wall that separates her from the rest of the women, the wall that I myself built.
A lot of people say that no man should cry over one woman because there are millions more out there who can replace her. Right. But for a passionate lover, those millions of women are almost impossible to see. Why? Because by the time a man’s heart bleeds for a woman, he has already built that impervious wall which separates her beloved girl from the rest of humanity, the same wall that kept him from believing that there’s someone better out there, the wall that guarantees his perpetual fidelity to her.
“Should I destroy that wall?” I asked myself. Of course I should! And I certainly could. But how easy would it be for anyone to destroy something he had worked so hard for to build? Would it be easy for you, my God, to destroy this universe that you created for us? Would it be easy for Leonardo Da Vinci to burn his Mona Lisa? Would it be easy for Shah Jahan to demolish the Taj Mahal? Damn! That wall was my masterpiece. That was a monument to the greatest bliss that I could possibly have in this life. And you expect to just destroy it? But unfortunately, I just had to.
I know it’s possible to have a romantic relationship with a woman without having those beliefs and without having to build that wall. But that relationship would be devoid of love. And because of that, it would be devoid of happiness as well. What message are you trying to give me, God? Are you trying to tell me that your children ought not to search for the kind of happiness that I had searched for? That we are better off choosing no to love just to avoid getting hurt? Or are you telling me to moderate my love so I could also moderate my pain at the cost of moderating my happiness?
If you want all of us to love less and suffer less, why the hell do you make love so tempting? And why do you keep telling us to love one another? To all my questions, your answer is nothing but silence. I assume it’s because you want me to find the answers from deep within myself. Well, I don’t know if this is the right one but this is the only answer that my heart can give—you want me to realize that love is the source of the ultimate happiness but the ultimate happiness can only be had if one is willing to take the risk of having to bear the ultimate pain. Loving a woman makes it possible for a man to feel bliss in her embrace. But it also guarantees that the man shall shed tears when she leaves him. Loving a child makes it possible for a parent to be happy even when doing the most backbreaking tasks. But it also guarantees that the parent shall grieve painfully when the child dies. It is simply impossible to be totally happy without love. And it is impossible to love without having the courage to bear the worst pain.
Is that really how you always wanted things to be? Is that how love is supposed to work? Because if that’s how you intended things to be, I just can’t help but think of you as a psychopath! Yes, my God, a psychopath. When you tell us to love and be brave enough to suffer for the loss of that love, you are a psychopath who aims a gun at a child, tells the child to build a sandcastle and, if the sand castle crumbles or if it turns out to be not beautiful enough for him, shoots the child in the head. That’s exactly what you do. You tell us to build our sandcastles of love, and if we fail to build the perfect sandcastle, when we fail to find the right love, you shoot us in the head with your bullets of pain. But if we succeed in building the sandcastle that can impress you, we become extremely happy. We celebrate and shed tears of joy. Because we know that you won’t shoot us. The love you gave us creates the ultimate happiness. But that happiness is just a happiness in knowing that we shall not bleed. And if we know that we can’t bleed for someone, if we know that we can’t shed tears for someone, we know that we are not in love. Bliss simply can’t exist without the threat of sorrow.
And I can’t truly love without you poking the cold gun of loneliness against my head.
Having heard everything I said, you must be wondering why I’m still talking to you, why I still believe in you. You wanna know why? Because it feels good to know that someone up there can be hurt by my blasphemous words! Because it feels good to believe that at least there’s one person out there who bleeds for me. And if you bleed for me, it means….It means that I don’t have to bleed so much after all.
Damn it! I’m fooling myself. But isn’t happiness just an art of fooling oneself? Two soldiers go to war. One believes the war will be won. The other believes otherwise. They both die before the war ends. Who do you think will have lived a happier wartime life by the time their lives end? A man and a woman get married and stay together for fifty years. The man loves the woman and believes that she loves him, too. The woman doesn’t love the man, period. By the time they die, who do you think will have had a happier life between the man and the woman?
I want to be rational. But what’s the point in being rational anyway? Why do people choose to be rational in the first place? When a person decides which career to pursue, why should he carefully weigh his options? When a woman decides whether or not she should accept a marriage proposal, why does she have to think about it thoroughly? Why does she have to listen to reason? When the prehistoric men were deciding how to hunt down a beast, why did they have to be rational about their plans? No matter how you look at it, the ultimate aim of rationality is survival. But what’s so good about survival? Do animals strive to survive just to feed? Or do they also relish the pleasure of being able to feed? Do people struggle to survive just to spend another day struggling to survive? Or do they do so because they want to love…and be happy because of that love? When there’s no love there to be felt, when survival does not promise happiness and survival is all that rationality can offer, what the hell is so rational about being rational?
Why hadn’t I thought about that last question at an earlier point in my life? Why the hell did I have to be so rational in the first place? What were all those dreams for? What were all those sufferings for? What were all those sacrifices of mine for if I’m gonna pass up on every opportunity to…satisfy my primitive instinct—the one that compels me to want to care for someone and feel that someone cares for me?
One more time I shall try not to be too rational. One more time I shall fool myself. Because I now choose to believe that there is a divine reason for all this pain. I choose to believe, shamelessly, that there is something good that can come out of this emotional hell. That the universe still follows a divine, though not necessarily perfect, order. And you, my God, are the personification of that order. That’s why still believe in you. Even when you are silent. I have no proof that you exist. I have no proof that you don’t. But rather than be an agnostic, I’ll just take a gamble on you. I am making a guess, the same way I do when I begin to fall in love.
So now, my God, I beg you to forgive me for my blasphemies. For no matter how much I want to punish you, I still am willing to accept that you are far more powerful than me. I still am willing to believe that you can teach me to build the perfect sandcastle of love.
Bless me God for I am beginning to lose my faith. Bless me God for I am breaking down. Bless me, for I need badly need the strength to begin the quest for happiness anew. Bless me, God, for I have loved.
Your child,
Ernest
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