A Fool's Guide to Love

Love draws lines between us like an astronomer plotting a constellation from stars, joining points into patterns that have no basis in nature. In the geometry of love, everything is triangular. The butt of every triangle is the heart of another, until the roof of reality is a tessellation of love affairs. Taken together, they have the pattern of netting, and behind them is Love. Love is the only perfect fisherman, the one who casts the broadest net, which no fish can escape. His reward is to sit alone in the tavern of life, forever a boy among men, hoping someday to tell stories about the one that got away.

But what is the basis of Love? John Nash said it so beautifully in his Nobel acceptance speech, “It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found.” A splendid irony if there was any.
A very dear friend of mine opines that it is essential that in one’s lover, one find both beauty and brains. It is fine for her to say so, she herself being endowed with both gifts. What is to be the test for mortals such as myself, I wonder? So, the search must proceed on a more idealistic, a more holistic note.

Love, the elders opine, is a matter of the heart, and not so much of the extraneous senses. And so, to seek true love, one must delve deep into the hoary depths of the heart of one’s lover, and test the purity of that love.
One may query, is one’s love itself pure enough to stand the test, to justify one questioning another individual’s love? To the sceptics, I only can offer the reassurance that this isn’t a mechanical process, or an obvious process, to be performed step-by-step else failure is one’s reward. The test for the purity of soul is a mental, a spiritual process. One scarcely even realises when one is being tested, when one’s actions are being weighed. In truth, one never even realises when one is testing someone. A conscious effort to guage love is nothing more than a charade, a farce, because when one doubts something, no matter how bright the truth may be, it simply cannot pierce through the darkness of such a doubt.

So, when does one realise that one has found the perfect soulmate for oneself? Well, maybe when you realise that the mere presence of that special person in the room increases the illumination, the aura, the joie-de-vivre in the gathering manifold, when that every gesture of your beloved seems so special, so unique, so inimitable. When she laughs, it is like the sound of a thousand wind chimes ringing in the breeze. When she smiles, it seems like a rosebud has just begun to blossom on the face of the earth. When she frowns, in her anger, one feels the fire of Hades, undesirable, unwanted, and most of all, something that one wishes to dispel as soon as possible. Even when she herself never calls asking for your help, if you can sense her troubles, that’s telepathy. When not a single day seems worthwhile to you if you haven’t seen her face at least once, if you haven’t spoken a word to her, if you haven’t given her joy, that’s true love. And believe me, all that you will feel for her then, she will feel for you as well.