To Love, To Set Them Free

I've been into so many stupid breakups, repeating all those excruciating moments and times, being deep down into megalomaniac sadness, trying to deal with the strange feeling, any kind of emptiness during the painful separation. What I've acknowledged eventually is that love never lasts forever. Nothing could stand so much longer even things we associate with love. The pain and sorrow are the manifestation of the fear we once deny. The fear of being in loneliness, the fear of having no one, the fear of being forgotten. People intentionally have that kind of instinct to strengthen their existences therefore they can survive.

If it is indeed what love supposed to be like, would it be so much appropriate for me to conclude that love only heightens our own ego? Love is the thing which heightens our ego to the utmost: the self-centered action to avoid being hurt and forgotten. It's possible for us only to love without craving something in return yet it doesn't seem enough for us.

I wonder actually if this might be called love, or something strange else. I always think that to love is to be free, that we are able to liberate ourselves as much as we can do. It's just like loving our hobbies. If we like to cook, we're free too cook anything and improve our skills by exploring any kind of tastes and foods. But, loving a person isn't as easier as that. It includes any other perplexities, complexities, confusions, and any perpetual undefined emotions. Extremely, it might include any limitations, pressures, and a bundle of tears and disappointments. 

We always want to be happy loving others. We always want to prioritize those we love. We always do some kind of favor not to abandon them. We misunderstand the concept of love to be self-centered where the self is constantly seen as the main point of all. That anything else outside the self  is unimportant. That what matters is only us, and fuck the rest. 

We always blame love for those stupid and irrational actions we take. We always blame love for all the failures and disappointment provoked meanwhile at the same time we keep worshiping its power as hell. We keep mocking its disability to get ourselves closer to those we love while at the same time we give ourselves up into its uncertainty. Dismantling the main idea of love through our contradicting action is what I've concluded after all.

Does our intension to love, or to be loved, or to have love in between remain nothing more than just usual and common things among society? Does it become great impact in prolonging our existences? Does it become marvelous when we associate it with our personal achievements? We achieve more if we love and be loved in return. At least that is what we always think important.

We only focus on what matters mostly. Then, after knowing and understanding this all, how come we still love and become loved?

I merely question this only to express what has been harassing me all this time. I feel a bit bad seeing people around me pretending and sacrificing a lot that they almost forget the value of love to be useful towards each other. I don't want to be very cocky and stingy because love isn't equal with any other concrete stuffs. Love is pure and holy. But what I'm concerned is on how we can survive the life together through the love we share, the love we hear, we feel, we touch, we smell. Thus, we shouldn't burden each other in the name of love. We shouldn't insist things that we don't suppose to. We should have understanding regarding to this issues.

The fact that love only destructs people around me really disappoints me.

For the shake of love, we merely let ourselves trapped in a total unconsciousness where we can't decide each step logically. We get emotionally attached to something or someone we shouldn't have to rely on. We define our togetherness with the ability to dismiss the obstacles and problems, the fact we obviously just focus on how we can be together not on how we can work it out together. We suffer through the vague embodiment of helping each other, as we don't know that it is actually our ego and fear of being left and forgotten, of being alone and mournful. 

The fights over silly things, the jealousy towards each other, the misunderstandings, and all the things we can't easily avoid are what is vividly revealed through those people who define themselves loving and loved. Sometimes we keep understanding others without understanding ourselves that once we love we might find it difficult to perform. In the end we keep blaming love and love again for all those stupid breakups and separations. The truth is we should indicate ourselves over all this. How much we understand ourselves until we crave to be understood by others?

So, the main thing I want to highlight is the understanding. The more we understand ourselves, the more we could understand others. We treat other based on our own experiences and by understanding ourselves, I hope we could measure the amount of intention of what we do towards others. The understanding includes compromising: that we must have willingness to understand that each person involved has stuffs going on to do. We might be in love with those we love. We might fill their life with any kind of emotions. Yet, we still don't have any privilege to spoil and ruin their life. We should have any kind of compulsory indulgence not to forget the difference between intimacy and privacy. We still have the life on our own.

Love sets us free. I believe so. Love provides impermanent emotion. I also believe so. Love includes understanding. It's absolute.

Love isn't just about the lovey-dovey romance movies we watch on the cinemas, nor just the exaggerated sentences on silly love songs those teenager naively consume. Love isn't just the impromptu desires on the climax, it's not just about the unexpected plan to ace. Love includes maturity on how we should love each other, and liberty on how far we should set each other free.

Purwokerto, April 10 2016.


Within the consciousness to love.