Monday, July 07, 2008

life of post-it's and arranged marriages

Let me tell you something about love – love for the other, and love for the rest. Throughout the years of this pursuit to figure out what’s out there for me and to wait if there is something or someone out there for me, there are those periods when you just want to give up on it, when you just want to not think about it, and when you regret ever realizing that someday you have to end up with someone, thus unconsciously forcing yourself to begin the pursuit of finding this someone. But disregarding those times of no longer wanting to be loved by the other, there are more hours and days that you wished and prayed really hard that today is the day you’d meet that person. You dress up everyday, try to look your best in the hope that someone will take a double look at you and then you silently whisper in your mind “Ha! This is finally the day.” But the thing is, how many days have you experienced that moment? How many times have you told yourself that this is the day you are bound to meet the other? How can you actually tell that this person passing by and looking at you would be the person you are bound to end up with in the end? How can you measure the probability that things will work out, that things would never end?

If everyone’s bound to love someone and be loved in return, why does God prefer to make things complicated for us? I often wish that arranged marriages was a rule written in stone, so that each one of us is sure to have someone beside us, to eat with us, to raise a family with us, and eventually join us in forever-dom. If all of us were arranged by our ancestors to marry someone, we wouldn’t have to go through all the fuss of searching for other people since the other is there already, sure and steady. And according to my psychology professor, arranged marriages are more effective than those “true love” ones. Couples who are arranged have a greater chance of surviving the marriage compared to those couples who thought they were in love with each other. Now wouldn’t be happier and a whole lot easier for everyone? Nobody’s going to end up alone and miserable. That, for me, should be the main goal of life. To live a life without misery. Why live if you are bound to end up miserable anyway? This may sound vague now, but I know as soon as I start reaching my 20’s and later on (hopefully not) experience a quarter-life crisis, I should remember that I said this, that I promised myself I would be a happier person as soon as that time comes. But for now, let me suck all the misery life has to give. This is, of course, exaggerated.

And if arranged marriage doesn’t work or isn’t clear enough, why can’t life include post-it’s or labels to remind you if it’s good meat or bad meat. This is too absurd I know, but if you think about it, you’d realize how efficient it would be if people had post-it’s invisibly wrapped around them and are visible only to those who are looking at them. Like if you’re in the library, you go sit in the middle of the study area and look around for people of your opposite or same sex and “see” their labels. One says “bad meat” or “good for 3 months only” or “don’t even think about it” or “he/she will just break your heart”, now wouldn’t that be easier? And then there’d be this golden post-it that reads “the other”. Surely, this wouldn’t be an easy task to accomplish, as you’ve seen in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But what makes labels easier is not making you risk a big chunk of yourself on something you’re unsure of. The other is there, a moving target you are supposed to search for, or may also be the other way around. But the more important point is, there is a target, there is a the other. And if God’s so good, He wouldn’t make us wait so long to discover the other.


Okay, time to work.

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