Bless Mark Zuckerburg, or whoever it was who created the Facebook Status Update utility.
Why? You ask. Well, who would have thought that a simple question like “What’s on your Mind?” would prompt millions of us Facebook users to come up with zillions of answers to it?
I’m not going to lie to you. I have put on some weight, which has turned my muffin top into more like a half-baked pie.
But then, those of you who know me or already have seen my pics, (amply available on my website and of course on Facebook too) will know this and just be the lovely people that you are.
Anyways, I digress. What’s actually startled me is that I don’t have a problem with the way I look, not in the past and certainly not now.
But as a single woman, in her late 20s, who’s looking to get hitched, I have encountered a few ‘suitors’ who do have problems with it and have expressed this quite blatantly to me, either verbally or through their manner of being.
I’ll cue for your “Awww” and “ouch!” moments here…
Yes, I was peeved by this and yes I have rejected the chaps, with the good old’ “It’s not you, it’s me” line, which they readily believed, unsurprisingly. So, looking for an immediate source to vent my irate annoyance, I hurriedly typed this out on my Facebook Status: “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,” says Shakespeare. So why do we judge others by how fat/skinny they are?!
Chuckle as you like, but this has sparked out an interesting array of responses from my friends and acquaintances enlisted on my Facebook page.
I’ve attentively read, responded and ruminated over what they’ve said and have deduced the following:-
1. We – i.e. men and women alike- do have an innate sense of who we Love and who we don’t.
2. We come to know this when we have experienced Love or Lust, via the human capability called judgement.
3. When we meet someone for the first time, we instantaneously decide whether we like them or not. So, if we’re immediately put off by something they say or behave, we’ll register it and probably express it, depending on how much we like them and how much we want them to be in our lives. This is why some are people-magnets and some are not!
4. If we judge someone by the way they look, then we’re in Lust Mode – i.e. we are looking for a mating partner, nothing more or nothing less.
5. If we like someone, warts and all, (or in my case, flab and all), we are capable of loving that person, for who and what they are; thereby nestling into Love Mode.
Having it all laid out like this does make it easier to identify when we’re in Love and Lust mode, doesn’t it?
It certainly does for me and it’s buoyed up my confidence (thanks to the reaffirming responses by my Facebook buddies) when it comes to looking for my Mr Right.
True Love comprises of lusting for, yearning for, nurturing for and supporting for someone to partner up with-for life.
This means that those who regard ‘loving’ someone on the basis of their vital statistics (and thinking that marriage is merely a license to have sex) is actually being in Lust Mode.
Indeed, Debashis, indeed. Innate love is a concept that exists to people who have experienced it and therefore believe in it. Otherwise, it doesn’t to those who don’t.
Yes, I am alluding to the spiritual plane in #5. I believe that True Love encompasses the heart, the mind and the soul; this will happen naturally and spontaneously so that one just flows with it. Doesn’t mean if you don’t believe in the soul, you won’t experience true love, there’ll be some part of you which Knows it’s true. 🙂
To me, your observations seem broadly right, esp. # 3 & 4 (not sure, though, about the first one on “innate sense” – it doesn’t always seem easy). There may be another perspective (sure it’ll raise sniggers). What #5 points to may also be called, to a small extent, ‘spiritual love’ (for want of a better term). Where there is a yearning to connect to the other person on a mental level or, at the least, more on the mental than on the physical plane.
As I have expressed already man is too close to himself. We tend to flow with current and don’t bother to keep aside and observe a thing/ ourselves at a distant to view a thing clearly. Simply, we are not curious about, we’re not an observant, we don’t know our body is a device to know of this world, and to understand that there could be a para-natural life beyond.
Thank you Maheshwar for your comments.
I agree that love does include lust, whereas lust doesn’t include love. What baffles me is how there are so many people who don’t know this simple fact of life! 🙂
You seem to analyze lust and love to an extent! Actually the term relates to more of a chemistry rather a subject of physics. Hence, difficult to separate them. I think, love includes all, whereas lust looks for a physical part only. You seem to correctly explaining here.