Love / Control
What is this thing known as love? What does this concept entail? What are its contours? Can its boundaries be encapsulated in a phrase? Why is it so valorised and so reviled? Why are most humans i know at odds with this term – love?
By itself, as an esoteric concept, love is a pure phenomenon. Pure as pure is. In the throes of love, differences wither away and consent is but a breath away. In the wash of this tide, one feels no pain; only bliss. Feeling that envelope an individual at this point of time cannot be described.
Joyous
Rapturous
Ecstatic
Floating
The adjectives and expressions are endless...
Love, however, is much more. It’s something at least half of humanity cannot comprehend. It is deep, profound, subversive too. Subversive?
Definitely! Love is dynamic. Love morphs into various emotions. It also changes individuals – completely. Love creates comfort zones. Comfort rarely, if never experienced previously. Comfort is a strange thing. It liberates. It also creates complacency.
It is the latter which is of concern. Once the seeds of complacency germinate, there is rarely any looking back. Complacency demands of us that the comfort zone stays the same. It needs stability, thus sounding the death knell for dynamism and revitalisation of a relationship. Once the vicious cycle is in motion, it mostly leads to a dysfunctional system where control is the overarching principal.
Control. “to exercise restraining or directing influence over” or “to have power over”. Why does one wish to have control and exercise control over their environment? What if the environment consists of human variables? It does not matter. The need for control is a visceral, intuitive feeling arising out of insecurities so deep that an individual rarely recognises the symptoms. It consequently leads to a gradual dissolution of all relationships where control plays a role, however small that may be.
The need for control is absolute – no half measures here. It is akin to an addiction. It is a craving which increases with every dose. Control. It leads one to believe in illusions. It treats belief as reality, hope as future. Control blinds one to introspection. Control, among other phenomena, sinks the ship of truth, integrity and honesty.
Control takes subversive forms. It stealthily creeps up on an individual and begins to insidiously work its wily charms. Surreptitious steps . . .
I have lost track of the thread of thought... More to come on this blasted truth!
