It has been a thought swimming around in the juices that apparently swirl around in my brain the past few days – this notion of “i cannot live without so-and-so who I love”.

And ironically enough, today, my longest-standing girlfriend calls me and says, “I think I have turned into a cold-hearted monster because I am beginning to realise that I can live without my so-called romantic partner. Is something wrong with me?”

It’s interesting how we become moulded by our surroundings even in something as personal and individual as emotions. We know how the ‘acceptable’ way to feel/act is, but how many of us really do feel the way we should be in a particular situation, and how many of us are honest about it, to ourselves, before we even begin to talk about whether we are with the people around us?

When we look up what philosophers have to say about love, most talk about it as a separate, isolated sort of emotion that seems to exist in a kind of vacuum. It almost takes on a ‘lonely’ sort of persona. Philosophers speak of people in love as loners, they stay away from crowds, they do their own thing, lost in their own thoughts, non-present, as if part of a different world. In books which were written in the romantic era, the lover is a lost soul almost, who wanders aimlessly with no real direction, nor any consciousness of his surroundings.

Love, when stripped of all the excess baggage the world has burdened it with, to me, is like an emotion so selfless, so beyond the self, that there really ARE no conditions. No required responses. No “ifs” and “buts”. I suppose, love, like everything else that is to remain in sync with the modern world, has had to take on a practicality. It has been moulded into a phenomena which can co-exist with the rest of the modern world. 

Which is what confuses so many of us lovers when we decide to take that leap of faith and allow ourselves to fall in love. (Practicality talking again: whoever said love could be allowed/disallowed from happening? A topic for another day perhaps.)

We get so confused because there are these notions of how it ’should’ be, how it ’is’, how we ‘want’ it to be.

How it ’should’ be in the modern world: an emotion which translates into an experience – physical, emotional, mental, spiritual – it turns into something more than an emotion. But it has to be an experience which can co-exist with the other aspects of life, it is non-intrusive, non-interfering. It must exist in harmony such that life can continue to move as it ’should be’.

How it ‘is’: an emotion which translates into an experience in SYNC with the ways of the world – we don’t say how we really feel because we are afraid of ’scaring the other person away’ with the depth and intensity of feeling, even though high chance is the other person is feeling the same way. we play games, play hard to get, follow certain ‘rules’ to not look too needy, not look too distant or not look too anything.

How we ’want’ it to be: Simple. Uncomplicated. Easy – we get to say how we really feel without a hundred thoughts of the impact it might have on how the other person feels. we get to do what we really want without a hundred thoughts of what it will look like to the world. we get to be ourselves.

ourselves. i wonder if this part of us ever really does come out in a romantic relationship anymore.

ironically enough, this is the relationship we would guess we should be able to be most ‘ourselves’ in. 

how many of us have heard something along the lines of “to love is not about being loved back, it is simply about loving.”

We should be able to live without the person we love. We should be able to live without ANYONE or ANYTHING, for that matter, if the need does arise.

We form a relationship between love and companionship. Love takes on ritualistic manifestations.

But can true love, real love, whether romantic or unromantic, truly take on manifestations, and yet maintain all its depth, intensity and meaning? It is like trying to translate Urdu or Tamil poetry into English. One may get the general idea and meaning of the words, but so much of the essence is lost in translation. Similarly, when love is manifested in these varying forms, surely it loses so much of its spirit, its essence, its trueness, to the limitations of actions and words and sounds and semantics.

It is interesting how the most important things are the ones you can neither hope to explain fully, nor understand fully.

oooh ooooh this is rather exciting.

ok so im going to apply to a university in Pakistan that is apparently rather difficult to get into. And one of the requirements is a good score on GMAT or LMAT. So now I start to get info on the GMAT. It’s kind of like an SAT but for graduate management schools.

today i went to vivocity. and i thought of p.

I’m sitting in the area between the two main rooms that make up my office space. I came out of the main office room because I am still feeling a little flu-ish and the aircon in the room would make it worse.

Not to mention, I’m getting much more work done here coz I’m not chattering nonstop with my colleagues.

Suddenly while working, the breeze distracted me and I looked up out of the window to my left, and I saw the leaves and branches of the huge trees just ouside the building. We are on the second floor so the leaves are right in front of the window. I remembered the many times I had stepped out of the office to this window when a certain number would ring on my mobile phone. I would quickly grab the phone, make a quick exit and answer “assalamualaikum” and hear his voice “vaalaikumsalaam”. it would be enough to send my heart into somersaults. I would take my comfy position with elbows on the window pane, looking at the branches and leaves of the trees as we chatted about nothing. Updates on the day, sweet nothings, nonsense. Haha. And I never realised until today, that in all those conversations, my gaze would remain on the branches and leave of those trees.

I miss those daily pointless conversations.

Yesterday, we spoke. It was a nice conversation. Fun. We laughed. He attempted to maintain his cold, distant tone as long as possible. Here and there, threw out little hints and gave himself away deliberately. He told me he was eating prathas for breakfast, so I asked if he has gotten himself married recently to be having such yummy breakfast. He replied that not yet. So I told him to make sure he invites me when he does, ill be sure to turn up. and he laughed. i told him ill invite him to mine, and it wont take place without him. to which he replied through his laughter, Insyallah (Allah willing).

Words which come to mind are grace, class, integrity, dignity. He often impresses me with these qualities. I wonder if he thinks quite as well of me.

It’s scary to think about it. Possibly going back to Pakistan to do an MBA in LUMS, a very good college there, for two whole years.

It is crazy how much cheaper it would be to do it there. In Singapore, nothing is less than $26,000 a year. There just the tuition fees will cost me $17,000 for the entire 2-yr course. Plus it will be my chance to live in Pakistan for a while. Like I always wanted. But can I live there for tow whole years? Can I live without my family?

It is exciting. Challenging. But scary. Not to mention, LUMS is brilliant and full of brilliant students. Very competitive. Can I do it there?

I know I WANT to get an MBA. And I know I want to go into Human Resource Management. What about a graduate diploma in human resource management first, some work experience in the HR field, and THEN an MBA? Feels a bit like a waste of time, doesn’t it?

The Nanyang MBA costs $40,000 for one year. god.

My dad is encouraging me to go to LUMS in Lahore. My mom is asking how I will survive there alone, in the view of all my relatives, from the lifestyle im used to here in Singapore, my personality, my nature, my disposition. Even I am worried about it. But I feel the exposure to Pakistan would be good.

I’m still gathering information from people I know who graduated from LUMS.

By the way our new washrooms are WUNNERFUL. I love the shower capsule, in all its transparency haha ive always loved transparent doors for some weird reason.

lately ive found myself craving for a ‘passion’. or to have something in my life im good at, and enjoy doing, and can develop over time. doesnt have to be useful. just interesting to me. i love music. im thinking about my sitar classes which I abandoned halfway. And Im wondering whether I should switch to Singing, which I love. But I’mr ather embarrassed to go back to my ustad sahib and tell him “hey so sorry for abandoning the sitar classes halfway, but now I think I want to do Singing instead.”

I also have a deep undying love for poetry. Urdu poetry in specific. And Sufi qawwalis.

from my last blog post: proud of how positive I am being? how comforting I am being to myself?

It has been nothing more than sheer denial. I have spent the past two weeks in a continuous state of pretense and bullshit. I have been acting like a complete idiot and I am, quite honestly, ashamed of myself. Embarrassed. At the same time I recognize we all need some time to be idiots when we go through stuff which throws us into emotional chaos. Some of us need minutes, others need days, some weeks, months, years. Yet others find even their lifetimes too short. I guess I took these two weeks to be the idiot I needed to be before wisening up – hopefully.

At this point, i remember something I wrote some time ago:

“Hello, Old Friend.