Life begins for us as infants and toddlers, being taught what is necessary and most of what wasn’t. We move from being dependent on others (read parents and family for the lucky ones) to being rebelliously independent from the very supporting hinges that held us in place.
Hence it won’t be bad to say life starts with imposing relations. Family, close relatives, cousins etc depending on the environment one grew up in.
Once one steps outside this boundary, when they start schooling or knowing the world through experiences, comes the knowledge of friends and acquaintances, people we chose to bring into our lives, based on their similarities and dissimilarities to us.
We decide in this phase who we want to hangout with, our parents and elder siblings keep an eye out for us, whether we are in good company or not. This circle of friends or even their definition keeps changing from time to time, based on our preferences of activities we are involved in.
As time passes some keep coming closer to us, some we have to drift away from. Not everyone can be a part of your life at all times.
All the above changes, processes are gradual, but then sometimes, life skips a few lessons and dumps a huge chapter on you all at once. The changes brought about in these junctures are sudden. Death for example, deceit for other. Here is a simple example of how we perceive relations with time spent together,
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| Relations over time |
A majority of our time is spent in testing the bond, which holds us together. But what most of us don’t realise is that we waste so much of out time testing each other, that is actually very little left to savour of that beautiful or could have been beautiful time spent together. The worst fear is that the relation is going to turn sour and we would’ve wasted our time in vain. Living under the shadow of this fear, we are left deprived of two things, one - the cherished experience which the relation could have brought along, had we been less judgemental; second - even a bad relation leaves us with a good learning experience and that nascent learning helps us further in our lives.
Over a period of time and experiences each and every relation with every other person undergoes a change. These changes are all inclusive of both physical and mental changes.
Physical changes are much more obvious, whereas on the other hand mental change or unchange is on a more subtle level and hence it is harder to perceive.
If only we are able to see small signs and cracks we can adapt to the new conditions and make amends, but more often that not we stretch situations to a point of no return and that is what comes into our lives as a fatal jerk.
Many a times, the reason for relations going brittle and breaking up is not change but “unchange”. Our adamancy of being inertial. Time and events require us to adapt to every emotion and changing scenario but we keep walking the same path of our behavioural patterns, not heeding to how people in the same relation have grown out of it.
A lot can be attributed to the fact that the basic nature of man/woman never changes. We may deviate slightly for better or worse from how we behave but deep down we remain the same, only a moments distraction and we are back to what we are from inside, from deep within our souls. That is impossible to change.
Hence the deepest connections which we make are to our soulmates. When bonded at that level, some relations become a part of your existence, they change and grow with you as an extension of your life and soul.
A soulmate may not be what is generally perceived in the romantic terms by merchants of tokens of false loving relations (namely diamond jewellers, archies, hallmark etc), but it is a relation beyond every other realm. It could be your best friend, your parents or grand parents. It is any one to whom you forfeit the need to explain your actions, because they know what you are upto, beforehand. Please don’t include psychics and good observers in this category, that’s a different story for some other time.
When i say you don’t have to explain your actions to your soulmates, it is because your thoughts are aligned at some level so deep, that they seem to stem from the same source. It’s these relations which seem to be most fulfilling in life, amongst whom, there is no pretence, no lies and no truth. Everything is unjudged and absolute.
So in the end, what we are we if we were to be left totally alone? Our own best soulmates, or broken incomplete parts of joined souls, trying to justify our existence in this world, without meaning and purpose?
