Beating Hearts. :)

What is love? It is so subjective. Everyone has different meanings of love. For me, it could mean the affection and sincerity of family and friends. For someone else, it could mean……

I won’t deny it. This is going to be a tough post to blog about. I am 

only a teenage boy. What do I know about love?

So, let me try again.

Love for a friend could mean wishing them well for any upcoming important events (like an interview) to show you care about them…..

Love for a grandma could mean holding her hand when she walks up a flight of stairs……

Love for a pet could mean bringing them out for regular walks…..

And the list goes on and on.

I was talking to a few friends about college life and it naturally diverged into a conversation about crushes.

Can crushes be categorised as loving someone?

Anyways, I was confessing to them as having this one crush but the affection faded away. Fading….if you were to marry someone, what happens when the feeling fades away?

And this is what scares me about love.

But love is also so magical….

1.    The twinkle of your partner’s eye when you tell them a humorous story.

2.    The little touches of your fingers, gingerly reaching for your hand.

3.    Smile, so sincere, when they see your face.

It goes on…

From being acquaintances, to friends, to close friends, to closer friends, to a couple, to life…

Love is so special because if you love someone from your bottom of your heart, you feel complete, infinite. Even if it lasts for a short time.

To quote an excerpt of Hazel’s eulogy to Gus in TFIOS:

“……so instead I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this. There is an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many days of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than what he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You have me a forever within the numbered days, and for that I'm eternally grateful.”

What do I feel about love?

I feel that love is a feeling that must be mutual. It must coexists between partners. It must come from the heart. Love, for me, is about celebrating someone else’s strength instead of stepping down on their weaknesses. Love takes time to nurture, sometimes a lot of time. But with hard and sincere effort, it can be so so special, so amazing and so irreplaceable.

You get what you put into life. And it should apply to love in the same way.

But, for me, loving someone else also means you have to love yourself first.

I remember a year back, and I had this crush. So I started talking to her and we got a bit close. Back then, I was so immature about love that I thought I found ‘the one’. After a few Skype calls and being so delusional about it, I realised she was not into me in the way expected her to be. I was trying so hard. It’s like hitting a ball into a wall but instead of bouncing back, the ball remained stucked into it. But I kept on ‘celebrating’ her strengths and hoping for a change but it never came.

Suddenly, it dawned upon me. I was not EVEN ready to be in a relationship. First, my results were utter shit. Second, I do not have the commitment to pursue this. Third, I do not even have a clear view of what I want to do with my life. And if I needed more reason, all the effort I am putting doesn’t produce any results.

So, I stopped everything. Stopped texting her. Stopped the calls. Stopped everything.

And I told myself that I have to be a better man for myself. Pursue my own dreams first before accommodating another person’s dreams. :)). How do I inspire another person if I cannot even inspire myself?

But for all the couples, gong gongs and popos, aunties and uncles, boyfriends and girlfriends who are still alive, with love, be it a small flame of it or even love with overflowing passion, I salute you. Because love makes us sane. Love has the ability to push yourself to your limits, to make you realise what you want in life.

I want to quote a singer whom I really enjoy…

“Loving can hurt, loving can hurt sometimes…

  But it’s the only thing that I know, know….”

                                                -Ed Sheeran-

So, compromise your partner’s mistakes and faults because we are not robots who do things with 100% accuracy. We are only human. Choose instead to appreciate the strengths.

But what do know?

I am only a teenage boy. What do I know about love?

Of Chats,Cats and Meows???!?

It’s precisely 2:07am. I am here in my chalet typing on my laptop. My chalet mate is sleeping soundly. Our aircond is blasting at full fanspeed. What I am about to tell you all will remain a secret if this is ever seen…                                            

OKAY…ahahahhaa, I know what you guys must be thinking and let me just clarify this. I will not be writing a ghost story. Haha. :P

Sometimes, I lie on my bed having bouts of insomnia. Thoughts about anything just keep replaying over and over in my head. Thoughts…exactly what I don’t need at this specific period of time. But, I just had this thought. It’s a reflection really. Or it could be a thought.

Either ways, it has to get of my head so I am typing it out on my laptop. My chaletmate is sleeping soundly….. HAHAHA, no! I am so not writing a 

ghost story.

Alright, recently, my friend introduced me to this new social app. Meowchat, <<< weird name much? Anyways, how it works is basically this. You create a profile, state your interests, post some photos for other users to view and look for new friends around the world. The rather cool thing about this app is you can tap on a button to randomly bring you to online users so you may start chatting with them. If they aren’t interested, just skip and find another user.

Okay. So, it was pretty addicting the first few days. Meeting new people from different countries and having simple conversations can be pretty gladdening.

Like any normal conversation on a social network, it is common to not be able to carry forward the next day. Why? Well, either you have run out of things to say. (I mean come on, it’s a social app, you cannot be too personal about exposing yourself to a complete stranger right?) or the user has found himself/herself another user to talk to.

This, of course, makes a hopeful user feeling down if he/she wanted to continue…..

My friend has a catchy phrase when a conversation on Meowchat lasts only for a day. He calls these chats One Night Stands. Thinking about it, it’s actually pretty lame. Lol.

How a one night stand works (ON MEOWCHAT THAT IS)

1)    Find a user

2)    Begin simple conversations

3)    Advise him/her about goals in their life

4)    Or just continue talking about anything

5)    Conversations last only a night

6)    Yea, that is about it.

I have thought about this.

We all look for friends. We need them. They uplift us. Push us to our limits and all in all, make us a better person than yesterday.

But sometimes, there are times when we feel a little down in our lives or we are inspired to tell new people new dreams. All we need is just a little motivation from more people to go forth with these dreams. Or a little comforting when the times get rough. And that’s is exactly where Meowchat comes in.

The way I see it, as countless of random chats are ongoing everyday, there has got to be a few that involves encouragement, inspiration, a shoulder to lean on, or just a booth to vent out feelings.

And these are chats that help people, give them the extra push to go forth with dreams.

So, don’t feel down when you cannot pursue a “two-night stand”, be happy with the one-night stand. To listen to people should be a privilege, not a burden.

We all meet people for a reason. But to leave a person feeling inspired is one of the best things you can do for someone. 

It’s precisely 2:46am. O wait, it just turned 2:47am. And my mind is calm, writing helps. Until I hear tapping near my window pane. I eyed my window, nothing is there. And that was when I realise the tapping sounds came from me typing words on my laptop.

Like I said, I won’t write a ghost story.

A Reflection

And then he ran……

The last sentence.

I dreamed about it every day. I think about it before I go to sleep. And as I marvel upon everyday life, I realised how profound this book is to me. As we progress in our daily life, and as we make mistakes that are sometimes forgivable, sometimes not, we begin to move towards happiness or happiness? Happiness we yearn for, want to earn. It is one of the few elements that bind us together, with love.

But going back to the mistakes, the mistakes I make, people make. Time heals everything, they say. Who is they, I sometimes wonder? But can time heal a broken heart? A broken soul? Something even science can’t seem to measure and give in quantitative or qualitative amounts. The mistakes Amir makes….

Amir, and the mistakes. And Hassan.

Two boys of the same kind,

Two contrasting personalities,

Two back stories,

One father.

The missing ingredients at the very moment Hassan got raped in a back alley in Kabul after the “successful” kite competition for Amir was courage. Or loyalty. Or bravery. Or heart. Whatever you call it, if any of these are present at that very moment, the story would have unravel in another opposite direction. Maybe if Hassan wasn’t just another Hazara, Amir would’ve ran up and tackled the rapist.

Maybe is a really interesting word. It resembles a reflection of thought. But like all thoughts, it only resembles a thought, an imagination IF not put into action.

 But, as I see how Amir grows with this heavy guilt he cannot throw of his own shoulders, I concur we all have this guilt within us. Stated earlier, we all make mistakes, whether we like it or not. Some guilt bearable, some not. It’s how we deal with situations that matter that matters.

And as the steps Amir took in his life became more impactful, so was that guilt.

I won’t go on rambling about the story anymore….but what I am trying to say is this.

Live life with kindness, simplicity and a lot of heart. Be as loyal and faithful towards beliefs you believe in like how Hassan is to his Amir.

And maybe, just maybe, the happiness in life we all yearn and want to earn for is a tad bit closer.