Anything less than mad love is a waste of time…

Created: 01-21-2003

I just got this article from someone…I don’t really know who the author is…but the comments below this are mine :D I just thought I’d share this with everyone.

Anything less than mad love is a waste of time…

One of the most recently released movies that have perhaps hit home (cringe!), so to speak, is the low budget “Dream for an Insomniac” starring Ione Skye and Jennifer Aniston. The lead actor used to be a child star but unfortunately, the movies that catapulted him to fame have already slipped my mind. Try to rent a copy of this movie not because of the talent of those who starred in it but because of the dialogue. One of those lines that bore a hole in my heart was, and I quote (not verbatim, though):

“I don’t want to be sixty years old and married to my second-best choice, wondering whatever happened to the one who got away.”

This is just one of the two great lines in that movie. I’ll tell you what the other one is later. Meantime, let us concentrate on this line-- the line that send chills down your spine once you decide to spend more than five seconds thinking about it. Have you ever wondered what it feels like to be married to the one you settled on? This truly gives me great feelings of anxiety. It might be difficult to accept the word “settle” because it conjures up images of quasi-happiness and half-hearted glee. Yes, there is some sort of satisfaction and perhaps, some feeling of security that can be derived from such a partnership but I wonder, could there be anything more? To settle is to ultimately accept what is within reach, what is available, what is there. To settle is to convince one’s self that the decision about to be made is inevitable, realistic and safe. To settle is to risk not ever being truly happy because one decides to adopt the worst style of bahala na attitude ob life’s greatest challenges. And settling is a sorry consequence of the passage of time. Yes, time can be the balm that soothes open, painful wounds in one’s heart but it can also be that dark force that manipulates one’s mind into thinking and believing that the choice one has made is the best choice…the only choice. What time does, and I’m sure you’ll agree, is it lodges one’s mind and heart in a cage with the door partly open -- with the promise of a better life losing its appeal over the reality of the present, the convenient and the routine. Time also pressures one into selecting a suitor or spouse because ‘wala ng iba’ and ‘nagmamadali na ako’ and there, ‘pwede na rin’. The wickedness of “settling” is not one way. It also eventually hurts the one who was chosen because in all respects, the truth will surface. You no doubt realize that you just wasted each other’s time and emotions. But then again, if your spouse chose you not because he or she “settled”, then forget about the win-win situation you were gunning for. Frankie (Ione Skye) delivered that line when she was deciding whether or not to do everything possible to win David Shrader’s heart. David happened to be involved with someone else. He was attracted to Frankie but didn’t really think it was wise to split up with his girlfriend of three years on a limb. Very much like you and me, Frankie is very atypical of the Rules Girl. She went for David, bared her soul, and tried to convince him that he will only be happy with her. She then gave him the other great line in the movie to make him leave his girlfriend for her. Anything less than mad, passionate love is a waste of my time. In the end, David left his girlfriend for Frankie and they lived happily ever after. Wow.

Many times in my not too colorful past, I almost gave in to the urge to tell the boy I liked what I felt for him. In all those times, I opted otherwise for fear of my mother’s wrath and, of course, embarrassment in case of rejection. I am scared of losing my precious dignity and pride in case he tells me that he only sees me as a friend. I’m sure you got through these exercises in your psyche too. Sometimes, our hearts win out over our brains when our certainty over the outcome is great. I try to espouse The Rules and very rarely make the first move. More often than not, I wait for the guy to call. Now you know that I’m one of those who walk the avenues of life on a sidewalk-- never off it. Now I’m starting to believe otherwise. I see the beauty in sharing your feelings with the one you love – not because you expect something in return but because life cannot be lived otherwise. It is a great, big step for an otherwise conservative, ‘torpe’ girl like you and me but if you think about it, it’s the only way to go.

Richard Paul Evan’s bestseller after The Christmas Box -- The Locket -- tells us a story of a woman who fell in love with a soldier when they were both very young. They shared their feelings with each other and were very happy. Eventually, he went off to war and she married somebody else, thinking he wouldn’t return to her. Years passed and they lived their separate lives -- he married and had a family while the woman’s husband and son eventually succumbed to illnesses and died. She decided to wait for her soldier’s wife to die before she came back to him -- because she didn’t think it was right to complicate his life. The wait took more than sixty years until she eventually found the announcement of his wife’s death in the obituary. By this time, the woman was already 80 and could barely walk. Sadly, by the time she managed to find her soldier to tell him she loved him, he was already senile. The woman eventually died a few days after seeing her soldier and perhaps going through the most heart-wrenching experience in her life. She was too late. The morals of the stories I have mentioned above are similar and almost connected to each other. Perhaps, another book theme that we can tie into these is that line from The Bridges of Madison County -- “This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime.” I am of belief that each person is given the chance to find his true love as he goes about his life.

Sometimes, the opportunity is not too obvious, especially for those who are content with their situation and therefore are not seeking “greener pastures”. These times, the chance is often passed up. The luckier ones are those who are probably more clear-minded and in touch with their emotions because they can easily recognize what is staring them in the face. Whether this chance is passed up or not, I know that the feeling one gets when this chance is still within reach is one of certainty. Yes, it also accompanied with feelings of danger, of risk and of possible pain but compensating for this is that inexplicable “sureness”, that sense of profound happiness that has never been derived anywhere else but from that one person who just happened to pass by in your tidy little life. I’ve written in this space an article on The Rules and the benefits that can be reaped from patterning one’s life after its teachings. I’ve been successful in convincing the people around me to use The Rules to their advantage. I know some women who swear by The Rules because they married their man. Now I’m saying there should be an escape clause somewhere for your own good. Follow The Rules in your daily life but have the wisdom and the humility to recognize a gift from the heavens when it is given to you. I call true love a gift because of its rarity. It does not happen everyday. If you pass it up the first time, try not to be too arrogant to look away when it comes by the second time. You may ask me “how will I know if this is my true love?” my answer to this is: true love is that strong awesome feeling that scares the hell out of you but always makes you unbearably happy. It doesn’t go away, no matter how much you will it to. More than anything else, you’ll know in your heart when you meet him that he is the one. He doesn’t become the one the same way that soulmates do not become soulmates later in life. With him, you are damn certain that you are not settling. With him, you know that you will be sixty years old and never wondering about the one that got away because he never did. He’s right there holding your hand.

My comments:

The author used ‘bahala na’ as a negative behavior where people resign themselves (as in defeat) to uncontrollable forces in their life and people would eventually put the blame to the greater forces – God, nature, maligno, etc. – for the wrong things that are happening in their lives. I used to think that Bahala na comes from the word Bathala (God) na, which means pagpapasa-Diyos. It is, in fact, has the opposite meaning, not that pagpapasa-Diyos has a negative connotation to it. After a conversation with a friend who is also by the way a psych major (while we were having breakfast at the hotel in La Union, I’m sure you know who he is), I came to realize that Bahala na does not mean abandonment of the responsibility and control over things…it is the realization that whatever happens you know you’ll still be able to control the situation around you and take responsibility for the decisions you make and face its consequences. Ah yes! The curse bestowed upon us for having free will. You courageously face the challenges and problems that life brings you; standing strong to your beliefs and to all the decisions you create. It is not a sign of weakness but actually a sign of strength.

“Come what may” is one of my favorite quotes and I must admit that I often use it carelessly to justify my actions and behavior but I never forget that whatever happens I take full responsibility. It is not because I do not anticipate the consequences of my actions, I am in fact fully aware and ready for those consequences, but because I am willing to face the challenges and complications it will bring. I see it as embracing life. That is why even if I know that I might lose the struggle I’d still charge head on!!! Not because I’m stupid enough to fight the battle that I know I would eventually lose but it is for the sake of experiencing the “battle”. Life is not about winning and losing, or who gained more and who has less, it’s about how you “fought during the battle” and how that experience made you a better person. Isn’t life exciting?!!!

That is just the first part of the realization. When will you know its time to stop? Eventually there will come a time where in you will have to stop engaging in the battles of life not because you do not have the strength anymore to fight and therefore have resigned to the life you chose to live but because you have finally realized that you have reached a point where you don’t have to fight for your self anymore…you don’t have to prove anything to anybody anymore even to yourself because you already got what you wanted and because you have fully realized your beingness…the meaning of your existence. Not all are lucky to experience this, some die struggling and not reaching the point of knowing their existence…their "being-ness" (perhaps the reason why their souls come back is to finish their unfinished business. I believe in reincarnation, by the way.)

In love, after you gave everything you’ve got to the person you have vowed to give your life and love but cannot reciprocate it, how would you know if its time to stop hoping and just let it go? Two things that I’m not sure you can rely on but just think about it…

When to let go…when all love and hope is gone. If love still exists there’s still hope. Respect and dignity will not exist if there is no love.
When to stop…when all respect and dignity is gone. Therefore, love does not exist here anymore.

Acceptance is the key. Life doesn’t always end “happily ever after” that’s the rotten truth about life’s realities.