The Residual Love

Yesterday night, the daily dose of discussion was about waste. Yes, the different types of trash that we generate and come across in our day-to-day living. While some are physical and can be removed or cleaned off easily, some remain like indelible stains. Some wastes are psychological. They cling to our souls, only to pester us emotionally, polluting our minds, robbing us of our dear precious life force and peace. Now, these 'internal wastes' are quite tricky to remove as we usually fail to notice them in the first place. Often we take these 'malicious bloatwares' to be part of the genuine package and thence begins the trouble. Nevertheless, the thought shared here is about what remains after love. Of all the different varieties of waste that we carry, this is perhaps the most ubiquitous and even diabolical. 

We know what happens to those giant stars once they run out of fuel to burn. If they were big enough, these stars would get crushed by their own 'self' to become an object of unimaginable density. It would even end up becoming a black hole from which even light can't escape. Or from another example, think about our nuclear power plants. They generate much-needed electricity by splitting an atom. But, after a while, the nuclear fuel ends up being radioactive waste which will burn on itself, emitting deadly radiation to the world around for many decades to come.

Now, think about love. Not just romantic, amorous love but all kinds of love that we feel towards the other, be it a human, an animal, or something else entirely. Imagine the love that we feel constantly during our lives. The needs and desires to love and be loved. Try to see the many forms it has taken and all its myriad manifestations. Try to see all the emotions that we have had to bear associated with this idea of love, all that pain, confusion, and chaos. 

Here, I do not intend to write about the glory of love. Nor am I going to demonize and discredit the experiences and expression of love. Here, the attempt is to look into and try to make sense out of the idea of ‘residual love’. The love that remains and lingers on even after its glory days. The leftover pieces remain even long after the core has burnt out. It’s about the idea of ‘after love'. What happens to love in the end? Does it collapse unto itself like a dying star? Or would it continue to burn like the radioactive residues from a nuclear reaction? And what happens to those living with these decaying residues of love? Again, my intention is not to find any answers but rather to ask these questions themselves. 

Love is perhaps the most potent force in the universe (though some physicists might disagree). It binds and breaks at the same time as if it is the point of convergence, where both chaos and order find balance in the universe. Simply, love is the light that brings us vision, but the same light also holds the possibility of leaving us blind. So, the idea here is that the experience of love holds the possibilities of both beauty and terror at the same time, and if one does not navigate through this ocean with caution, he/she is bound to fall into the abyss. So, am I suggesting that one needs to be cautious, logical, and calculating while experiencing love? Not at all. Love is an experience of Chance, a beauty of Chance even. For love to bloom and spread its fragrance, it needs to be left alone, independent, and certainly out of our cunning, calculating minds. But what happens when love burns out of its fuel. What happens when the flower of love begins to rot instead of bloom and what happens to its fragrance? What happens when the idea of love itself causes sheer terror and fear in one’s heart? What happens to love and the lover, when it becomes reduced to waste, a dead weight in one’s soul that cripples them. I think this is what residual love is. And this is where most of us live today. Unfortunately!

The stink of residual love takes many forms. It is the fear of losing the ones we love or of losing love itself. It's anger too, and so is grief, lust, anguish, dependence, and on and on. This is when our feeling of love disrupts, clogs, and reeks our natural flow of life. This is where we are uneasy, constantly in fear, and gripped by insecurities. If love makes one feel like a prisoner, being constrained, sans confidence or independence, then that can only be a love that is barren and wasted. Residual love. And someone living in this place, holding on to this residual love, can only collapse in the end, like a dying star, drained out of all their vitality, joy, and love. 

Now, what is the way out? How can one identify and filter out the residual love from their system and restore the flow of life? I think this begins with a simple act of immense valour, in carving out a sacred space for oneself. This does not mean that one should retreat to a shell and remain isolated and insulated from the rest of the world. Instead, it is an act of self-respect. It’s about knowing and drawing boundaries, making sure there is enough room for the river of love to flow through our ‘life stream’ without drowning us. It’s also like pruning our gardens, making sure weeds are removed and each plant could grow together but in its own space. It is also about finding the courage to accept failures, setbacks, and seek and deliver forgiveness and move on. Brute force, strict discipline, or sheer willpower will not help one in cleaning and clearing residual love. It will also take compassion, mercy, and pity as the vanguard. 

All love stories begin with promises of eternal bliss. Love stories often are portrayed as burning bright with passion. But, none speaks of the residual love or the after love. We speak of an afterlife and even curate our lives accordingly to get the best possible afterlife experience. But, I think it’s time we started thinking about after love too. How do we navigate through love when it starts to lose its glitter? How do we learn to share the spark without extinguishing the other? And, how do we move on when it finally ends. I believe the journey to authentic love from the clutter of residual love begins with these simple questions. And we shall live, to learn its answers. And we shall love to earn the answers.  

She was serene, like a cool breeze,

and revealed herself to be the spirit of the moon.

She reflected the essence of the sun

through her light. 

She had no claims, and she owned nothing.

Yet, night and day belonged to her. 

She was the gentle reminder, 

that there is light even in darkness. 

She was the mirror, that revealed the sun,

and hers was the spark that ignited him. 

-Harishna