Le Carre Speaks To Me

The only reward for love is the experience of loving. --- John Le Carre, The Secret Pilgrim.

I had to remind this myself every time I struggle with the emotions I feel when I am in love.

Yes, I am in love.

It's been a while since I felt a strong emotional connection with someone I am dating. You see, I’ve known this guy for almost five months. I never expected to develop any feelings for him after the first time we met. I remember that day quite clearly though.

It was at the RITM ARG clinic. I was there for a consultation. He was also there for a consultation. It was past four already and we already had a long day waiting for out time to see the doctor. I credit boredom for making me walk in and out of the lounge where many of the patients were just as bored as me. The first time we crossed each other’s path we didn’t really give much each other any attention. It was just another patient walking into the lounge and I was just another guy walking out of the lounge. Then when I was about to walk back in and he was about to walk out, he smiled...and I smiled back...and we talked...and talked and talked until we decided to both go out of the clinic once we’re done with our respective consultations together...yeah together with another friend.

I was nowhere near to falling in love yet. I barely know him. But we exchanged numbers.

Then we started exchanging SMS...talking about our own selves and how we got the virus...our life experiences so far. We were getting to know each other slowly until it got to a point where I felt I want to see him again. So we went out for a dinner and a movie. It was an innocent friendly date for him but I already started feeling the attraction.

I was drawn to his smile. The way he talks endears me to him. When he talks, he stutters and smiles in between and apologizes for it. He’s quite simple. But I know he has the ambition which separates him from among his peers. And he’s as driven to realize this ambition as I am. And so I started falling in love. Denying it one minute then before I knew it, the affection I felt for him outgrew all the hesitations I had.

The tricky part though is whether he feels the same way. And this is the part where I had to remind myself of what John Le Carre wrote.

The only reward for love is the experience of loving.

Yearning to be loved back is part of the process but should it be part of the experience of loving. This brings us to the question. When we love, is there a part of us that expects to be loved back in return? Is there a part of us that hopes to be rewarded with the same attention that we shower on someone? Or perhaps, is there a part of us that selfishly wants a form of reciprocation?

Then we examine our philosophical view of love.

Love does not seek itself...Apostle Paul said so himself to the Corinthians as written in the Bible. It does not seek its own interest. Does it pay to believe in what Apostle Paul said?

Love is a battlefield...a Pat Benatar song goes. You fight for the chance to be with someone you love. You fight against all elements that would keep you away from the one you love. But where there is a battlefield, there will always be a victor and a vanquished.

Loving someone is investing feelings for someone. But then and again any investment could go either way...it could be a bad investment or a good investment. And the way to get to know whether an investment is good or bad is to go through the investment and see how it pays off.

And amidst all these musings, stands your heart. And more than the bruised ego, it is really that notion of going back to feeling lonely and sad that makes it tiresome to be heartbroken.

I don’t think I could count how many times my heart got broken...or maybe I could. But the point is, I’ve put out my heart there in the open...and as many have taken it, many have dropped it too. The wounds that it got in the process may have turned to scar and the scar becomes hidden with time but it stays there for a long time. Who would want to go through the whole process of falling in love and getting hurt and falling in love and getting hurt again and again and again?

A masochist perhaps you could say and it might as well that they take John Le Carre’s words for their motto. And if there truly was a club such as this, would I join their ranks? I might as well.

For surely as I love, I believe that love never fails. Love bears all and endures all things. Love works itself to find the way to where it rightly belongs. And the corny part is not believing in it wholeheartedly but the part where I act according to that belief. And so I decided to go through the motions of dating and steeling me for the worst part and ironically hoping to win his love too...which is not necessarily the end all and be all of the process...but is just the icing on a cake. It is to be determined where it will take me...but before I get ahead of things I just had to be reminded.

Of course the cake is the experience of loving itself. John Le Carre made sure to remind us. 

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the illustrations used here. They are just here to add color to an otherwise dreary blog. Credit for the illustrations goes to those who made them. You can click on the pictures and they are linked to where I lifted them.