Eat Pray Love - Comfort Food for my soul!!!

It's truly quite rare that one comes accross lines in a book or a movie that connect so deeply with your inner self and manifest some of your deepest emotions into words.

I had a similar experience with this wonderful journey of life which has been articulated by Elizabeth Gilbert into her book "Eat Pray Love" and then converted into a motion picture starring Julia Roberts, the most apt protagonist to essay the part. The lines which mirrored my soul are.....


""If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will protect upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else."

Whole - Greater than the sum of its parts!!

There was a superb blog post that I recently came accross called "One Minus Some Is Still One..."  which propagated the thought that being 'Lonely' and being 'Alone' are two different things. Being lonely has a negative connotation and being alone is a positive state of mind. When we forge relationships to get rid of our lonliness, we're effectively cheating the other person. However the article proposed that we must love to be in love with being alone. We must learn to first be in love with ourselves only then think of forging relationships. (by relationships - one doesnt mean the spousal / romantic ones only). The following was my reply to a friend who asked me for my feedback on the thought!!..... Sharing it here as I'd love to know what you think on this...

I was contemplating upon this article I read and have been thinking of my reaction to it.....

And I never knew I would EVER begin articulating my thoughts, the way I’m about to. Using Maths!!!

When it comes to relationships, we need to understand the basic arithmatic behind it.

We need to recognise that two, is not just a literal summation of one plus one. We must learn to respect it as an entity in itself. Give it the recognition of being an individual whole number itself rather than constantly viewing it as a sum of two real numbers. Only when we learn to recognise this fact, can we learn to nurture and develop our relationship to the fullest.

We must realise that in the case of human relationships, some of parts (can / should) never be greater than the whole. Lest, we develop fault lines in our relationship ebbing from our deepest routed vice – ego. Hence whether I'm lonely / alone should not really count as long as my intent, commitment, conviction and belief in the relationship is pure and sacrosanct. We need to attach far greater importance to the invisible entity we create (relationship) by our mutual consent, rather than the mental, physical, emotional and physiological state of its constituents (us).

A relationship is a mutually beneficial excercise based on mutual consent. Much like the trades that happen on a stock market. One buys only when the other is willing to sell. As long as both are happy indulging in the act, their intent of buying and selling seldom counts. It can never be a zero-sum game for anyone.
 I partially agree with the subtlety of difference in connotation of ‘being lonely’ and ‘being alone’, however the extrapolation of that concept to interpret individual behaviour in relationships, is something I'd humbly disagree with.

 “I strongly believe that one should first come to terms with one’s own loneliness before entering into a relationship”

When we say this, we truly undermine the power of the phenomena of creation of relationships. Have we wondered how to relationships get formed? (Apart from the ones that are thrust upon us). I think we need to then question the basis of formation of our relationships. Having a precondition of not being ‘lonely’ before entering a relationship would certainly blow away chances of a potentially great relationship being formed on the basis of that loneliness itself where one of the stakeholders acts a beacon of inspiration, companionship and a source of genuine love and affection to the other to alleviate him from his current lonely state. And mind you, this is not done as an act of help or charity. It involves real feelings of real people.

Secondly, another glaring omission in consideration, was the thought that in neither the state of being lonely or alone, is sustainable over a period of time. However, being positively socially engaged in a relationship, if managed well, can bring sustained happiness, fulfilment, joy and satisfaction to us.

We can ask for ‘alone’ time out of a relationship, if we feel disconnected with ourselves for a bit, but the converse is just not possible!!

Transformation of loneliness to aloneness is an act of self deception. A certain mind game, we convince ourselves that we need to play solo!

In my view, attempting to try and create a compelling environment for ourselves which enables us to create and cultivate positive relationships, is the ultimate way of creating enriching experiences, which ultimately make life worth living!!!