The Heart

Ever since I started this blog six months ago in December, there’s no question that I’ve fundamentally changed. In everything that I do, I am able to think with clarity in perspective and reason, to hone my words with sharpness in focus and intent, and ground myself in truth and purpose. For virtually my entire life, I’ve been subjugated by the thought of failure and loss, of inadequacy and hypocrisy, and of purposelessness and inconsequentiality, whereas now I have little doubt in terms of what I’m meant to do in this life of mine; I am at peace with the thought of death; I am unperturbed by the notion of suffering and strife. My emotional volatility is generally very low. In the vast majority of circumstances, whether in work, daily life, friends, or family, I am content, stoic, and grateful that I’m able to be here at all, even if to suffer.

But there’s a part of me that hasn’t changed. There persists one catalyst in particular that has never failed, and continues not to fail in instigating a relentless and inexorable chaos within my heart—love. It merely takes a few fateful encounters with a special person, one fleeting moment of eye contact or physical touch, or a couple intoxicating thoughts of possibility as an impetus for this disconsolate, sulky heart to spur it into an irreversible, frenetic spiraling into utter chaos, impelled by quixotic tendencies and an undeniable, ravenous desperation for love. Despite all the progress I’ve made cultivating the mind and however much I perceive that I’ve fundamentally changed internally, I am still far too easily blinded by love. Compared to my past self, while I think vastly differently, I’ve come to the realization that it’s not as if I feel any differently. It’s only now that I feel in my rational mind as if I’m an innocent bystander to this chaos, witnessing the storm brewing in the distance. Do I view it with disdain or with awe? With contempt or with appreciation? With fear or with hope? No matter what I think, no matter how much I try to reason with this insolent and tumultuous heart, I will never prevent the unpreventable. I will nevertheless become helplessly stranded amid this raging ocean, swallowed by this sea, and the feeble comfort of this rationality—viciously wrested from my consciousness by the inexorable pull of this whirlpool of emotion.

Though what is most peculiar is when I juxtapose this chaos with the aforementioned resilience that I’ve recently built up in this state of mind; this acute self-awareness and this ability to at any moment detach—however momentarily—from the chains of my present circumstances combined with a tumultuous stream of emotion creates within me a strange duality of truth. It seems that at the center of the pursuit of a life well lived lies this fundamental ambivalence of human nature, wherein the consciousness seems to be stranded amidst an unceasing tug-of-war between the heart and the mind. It seems that the meaning of life remains suspended in limbo; is it an unending war, or is it a dance with possibility?

There exists no doubt in my mind what I’m meant to do—what I’m supposed to do and what is deemed reasonable. To fall in love with someone I know nothing about? Absurdity. To incessantly envisage emotional intimacy and connection? Delusion. To believe that they just might be the one and only? Stupidity. In my mind, I know with certainty there is a cost. I know there is a risk. I know it will subjugate and oppress me. I know this frenzied desire and unleashed emotion will derail all semblance of rational thought and my life purpose. But the heart remains unperturbed by the fact that I have more important work to do in this life, unfettered by the notion that I might just be making a fool of myself, unfazed by the very distinct possibility that these feelings are all but an elaborate delusion. In the heat of the moment, disoriented and dazed in the midst of all the confusion and the cacophony, desperate and distraught from all the uncertainty and indecision, nothing—nothing feels more right, seems closer to an ultimate truth than the mere prospect of love.

Blinded by love, coaxed by possibility, determined to find redemption, there seems to be no doubt in my heart, either. There persists an irrefutable yearning ensconced within it—an inexorable desire for passion, for love, for chaos. The frenzied rush of sex, the unmistakable warmth of two souls inextricably locked in an embrace, the invigorating sensation of a reckless wander into this war-torn and ruin-strewn battlefield of emotion. If I said, from the absolute depths of my heart, that I don’t long for the radiant warmth of another’s heart, that I don’t yearn for another’s grace enveloping my consciousness, that I don’t crave the taste of soft lips and the invigorating gaze of a lover, that there is no ravenous beast of lust and desire lurking within me, that I am not completely and utterly starving for love, there would be no greater lie to have come out of my mouth.

Have I starved myself of love far too long? Are my emotions indeed delusions? Or are they shrouded avenues towards a greater truth? As much as we try to psychologically detach ourselves from the inexorable chaos outside our perception, as much as we try to understand—relentlessly and meticulously peeling away at the seemingly innumerable number of layers of reality that constitute an ultimate truth—there seems to be nothing more undeniably real and irrevocably true than our feelings and emotions. The pure, unfettered joy of eating when famished, drinking when parched, resting when exhausted, the warm comfort of a mother’s embrace, the relentless gravity of a lover that tugs upon our hearts, the searing pain of smoking hot oil splashing onto our skin, the visceral panic when a large animal charges at us—what are they but atoms scattering haphazardly in space? What are they but players in this nonsensical game we call life? But in that moment before our minds can rationally justify how we feel—regardless of whether we want to feel those emotions or not—we are one with the chaos.

But the more I contemplate this ambivalence between the heart and the mind, the more I am convinced that this ambivalence is the point. After all, if I cannot control my emotions, what am I, but driftwood in an incomprehensibly vast ocean, ceaselessly tossed by the waves and dragged by the currents? What am I, but a ravenous predator in a desperate pursuit of a meal? Or am I the prey of such a beast, merely awaiting an inevitable fate? And if I cannot experience my emotions, what am I, but a faceless and featureless entity, a cog in an incomprehensibly complex machine, an actor in a plotless play? My mind reorienting itself in a state of emotional chaos—should it be akin to a policeman catching a thief red-handed? Or should it resemble a shepherd guiding back sheep that have been led astray?

To fall in love and find nothing—there exists no greater waste of time, energy, and attention. But to fall in love and find love—there exists nothing quite as momentous, visceral, and irrevocably true. And I speak as if I had a choice between them—as if any semblance of reason survived to discern which is which. In many ways, this inability to discern and this revocation of agency in my emotional state has been tormenting my mind for the past month. But after many long days of emotional carnage and the attrition of reason, I’m realizing that perhaps there is no reason to fight. Perhaps the point isn’t to change the way I feel—to shut out these absurd thoughts, to reprogram my emotional disposition, to regulate how I should feel at all times. Lest I forget that my heart has its reasons of which my mind knows nothing, and that the heart, like any other source of suffering and grief, is also an indispensable source of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.

I didn’t choose to feel this way, as I didn’t choose to suffer, either.

But perhaps, the point is not being able to choose at all in the first place.

But if I did have a choice, would I still choose to feel this way?