Love, a double-edged weapon [Archives:2005/816/Education]
By Saeed Omer Al-Batati
Faculty of Education – Seiun
[email protected]
Just imagine for a moment that you lived in a universe alone. Then you would not find anyone who shares with you your happiness and sadness or listen to your pent up feelings. In such a case, what would life be like?
Of course, life would be a veritable hell because you are deprived of the expression of warmth and affection and you may die without it. That is why a poet says: Society, friendship, and love\ Divinely ordained on man.
It is a bliss to find a person who, like a doctor, heals your wounds and helps you tackle your issues.
Yes, life is a reciprocal relationship. Cooperation among people is as important as life itself. So it is absolutely impossible for anyone to live alone. Moreover, people need to communicate with one another for obtaining certain information, gaining sympathy as well as establishing good rapport with neighbors and others. The most common forms of communication are speech, writing and electronic communication. However, the oldest of these forms is speech, which has been used for thousands of years. As the process of communication goes on, something comes to the surface which strengthens ties and enhances feelings of warmth, trust and affection among people. This is called love.
Love embellishes life and gives it a unique shape. It is also the nerve center of life without which baser, savage instincts would dominate over human relations.
In addition, by love people can overcome loneliness. However love has another side. It is invisible like air, but it causes disastrous results, as a hurricane does. It devastates life. In the same way, love which is ruthless ruins hearts. It leaves the lovers in a state of death-in-life. So it is potentially as fatal as poison.
It is no exaggeration to say that love kills like the poison. Love grows to reach the peak, and this can be the most dangerous stage which is called adoration.
In this case love permeates the total being of the lovers and it intoxicates them so that they consider their beloved everything in life. So a lover is overjoyed to receive the beloved's charismatic smile or a letter of love. And he is overwhelmed with grief as she drifts far from him. And if she died or gave him a cold shoulder, he feels so desperate that he might commit suicide or become seriously sick.
I think no one can write precisely about love until he falls deeply in it and undergoes its agony, otherwise he would consider all what is said about love as hot air.
Love is blind
As love dominates the mind, it makes the lover look through one eye feeling his beloved's white side only. As a result, he condones and overlooks her wrongdoings. Even if his beloved made a serious mistake, he vindicates this behavior what ever it was.
Love in the past
Love has always affected its victims down the ages. The pre and early Islamic areas abound with many examples.
Perhaps no one has undergone love like Qais and Layla, his beloved, Antara and Abla, and Jameel and Bothina. Those lovers were poets, so they wrote the most deeply moving and interesting love poems in Arab culture which depict the ocean of love they have sunk into..
Love in the age of technology
Nowadays, love is just like what it was in the past as far as its impact is concerned. However, a clear difference is that in the present age technology is used as a powerful medium for conveying the cadences of love. Moreover, in the past love was purer than it is today. In the modern age love is marred by falsehood and deception.
Deceptive love is discernible now, most notably among university students. Some students spend their time looking for a girl as a pastime, not seeking pure love.
Unfortunately some girls fall an easy prey to the cunning machinations of those wolves. They are tricked by their sweet talk. I earnestly hope simple and innocent ladies would realize the dangers of falling in false love and shun it by all means.
Common fallacy
Often one comes across dodgy people who are wolves in sheep's clothing. Outward appearance can sometimes deceive. Some people are outwardly pious but their inner characters are as devilish I'm trying here to refute the theory of a “love at first sight.” Your first meeting with any person cannot give you a sound judgment about him/her. It only starts takes you to the brink of a fragile love as the proverb says “easy come, easy go”.
Everlasting love
It is your right to love, but you have to know to whom you give your heart. To create a steadfast and everlasting love, you need to know enough about your beloved, their personalities interests, needs and motivations, in order to get them willing to listen to you. This love cannot be easily shaken by the wind of change.
You can trust that person completely and safely divulge your secrets to him/her. Mind you, better look before you leap.
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