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1st August, 2012
LOVE is endless communication, compromise, tolerance and an overall interaction between two different ‘territories’, rather than between two entities, individuals or bodies.
‘Baggage’ could have been a better word than ‘territory’, despite its obvious negative connotation.
So, each of us has our own history, the so-called territory.
The background we grew up in, our families, the books we have read, the education we have had, the people we have loved, what we have been through, the scars from the past, secrets that we don’t tell, our process of growing up, the various pain and emotions we experienced, love, hate, aspiration, hobbies, indulgences, all these form a territory within ourselves that is totally ours and ours alone.
Our territory makes the sort of person that we are.
When two people first met, the two individual territories could not have sufficient communication, or interaction, even though both might have continued testing the water of each other’s territories.
One side would worry that her territory would not be appreciated by the other side or vice versa. We waited patiently and hoped that what the other side loved about us was not only our looks or achievements.
Because all these are not only part of us but also something that will disappear with the passage of time.
What we are waiting for is that the other side would accept and love our territory, the baggage that we are carrying, warts and all.
There, we have our weaknesses and inferiority, our time of helplessness and shame, our fear, negative side, habits and also our hope and aspiration.
Only when he falls in love with this territory, he can fall in love with us.
We bring along this territory to reciprocate his love. Acceptance from him means he is ready to also accept our territories, whether more of being good or not so good.
When we love someone, we are also ready to accept and willing to understand his particular brand of territory.
Love, it can’t be denied, does sometimes exaggerate the similarities between the partners.
Then suddenly there comes a day when we begin to realize the similarities and differences are equally important.
Of course, there will be no difficulty accepting the similarities because they are the reason we were attracted to one another in the first place.
However, to accept both our differences is nothing short of earth-shattering. It is the assimilation of two territories.
Men, in particular complain that women plot to change then. But how about them? They are no difference.
The difference is women are direct about it. They tell the men they wish them to be like this and like this.
Men do not open their mouth. Instead they secretly observe the women, hoping to succeed with their intelligence and talent.
It’s not that a person cannot change for the other to a certain extent because we can, when we set our mind to it. In fact, at some point or the other, we all have restrained or restricted ourselves somewhat for the benefit of the person we love.
But no matter hard we try we can never completely alter our basic character, the deep-rooted person that we really are.
So, why change? There isn’t a need to. I don’t want to be the same as you. It’s more interesting because we are not the same.
The secret of a successful partnership does not lie in the similarities between partners, but because each partner can accept the differences of the other.
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