Yeh Love Kya Cheez hain yaar!

Love.... the word itself is probably, without argument, the most abused, manipulated, and loaded with meaning word in the entire English language. Love for family, love for one's friends, love for God, love of one's profession, love for one's neighbor and so on ad nauseam are some of the myriad flavors of this feeling. Poets, authors, painters, sculptors, singers, musicians have created the greatest masterpieces of art ever inspired and driven by this indescribable feeling of complete and utter infatuation for their object of admiration. Some of the greatest achievements in the fields of science were fueled purely by the love of discovery. The love for the fine arts has manifested itself in some brilliant performances etched on the minds of the viewers fortunate enough to witness these acts of complete submission to this feeling. Can anyone ever truly describe how the lover feels when he holds his love in his arms? Can one put into words the emotion a mother feels when she sees her newly born child?

Sadly, the power of this feeling that has driven man to great heights, also makes him suspect to do things no logic can explain. Each and every human being craves this one emotion like nothing else, and the presence or lack otherwise of this element in a human's life is the single most important factor shaping his psyche. Power and riches may satisfy every other desire man feels, but nothing can replace love. The greatest single feature of love, defying all laws of physics, science and cold logic is that there is no such thing as an end to love. One can love a million people to the fullest, and still have enough left to give to a million more. Love knows no bounds, no color, no distinction at all. But the minute love is missing, everything turns awry. Without love, man is essentially a psychopath, incapable of feeling happy, despite any and every of his desires being fulfilled.

It is very easy for other human emotions to disguise themselves as love misguiding the mind and making it choose paths certain to cause misery. Greed, lust, attraction, jealousy are some of the impostors that make full use of the power they get when they cover for love. Each and every faith witnessed by mankind advocates the need to regulate these nasty creatures of the human mind and discover true love. Easier said than done, for it is rare that love can be inspired where such evil lurks. On the other hand, the only way to drive away such evil, is simply put, loving even such misguided denizens of our world.

The one last defining feature of love is, that it is such a strong feeling that a lack of response from the receiver can eat away at even the most loving person. Unrequited love, by itself, is one of the biggest causes of depression in the human world. When man has learnt to give without expecting, to love without needing to be loved back, then he will probably discover the actual purpose of life and real fulfillment. Sadly, only a select few have been able to embrace this higher echelon of the human psyche, but one cannot be blamed for being unable to do so. Caring for someone, by itself can only come naturally to someone who has been cared for at some stage in their life. Learning to be able to do so, without expecting anything in return, can be called easy only for the gods.

Well then, what is one to do? Can we ever learn to accept this truth and actively progress towards achieving such a goal? Is such a pursuit pointless? Imagine being able to love without any reciprocation, the kind of freedom one would feel. The soul, if it truly exists, would only be truly set free if we have no strings attached to the other souls around us. True happiness lies in giving, in being able to see past the desire to be loved, to give without thought for reciprocation and to hope that the receiver passes that love onto another. This chain of gratitude is the only way us humans can ever save our sad, ailing world. For only misery lies at the end of any other road, and difficult though the path may be, we must not give up this noble pursuit of human excellence.