How love evolves ?

Love itself is an expression. Can an expression have various forms of expression in it? We all are in love one way or the other - to a person, to an object, to a wish, to our dreams, and all that we want to be part of our daily life.

This may not sound very certain. Then what is ‘liking’? How is loving something different from liking something? In discussion with my best friend, we discovered that ‘commitment’ takes us from liking something to loving something. You commit something that you like, and then you are in love with it.

An ordinary pen, it's your companion in your writing, you like to write with that pen, and you take care of that pen. One fine day, you commit the pen that you will never throw it away; you will always take it with you. Then you fell in love with that pen. You fear the care that another person would give it when somebody borrows your pen. You feel hurt when somebody drops it on the table with carelessness. Eventually, you feel like it's you who has been thrown onto the table. You feel like people treat you the way they treat the pen.

I came across an article describing the expression of love by the famous scriptwriter Shri. Lohithadas. In that article, it is described how love evolves in each person. Each person admires a certain quality in the other person. The admiration, when it gets entangled with sympathy to certain events that have occurred in the other person or with the emotions of the second person, it levels up to empathy towards the other person. Then love follows.

But I saw something missing that went unidentified between empathy to love - commitment. The commitment may not always occur consciously. It may also occur unconsciously.

In a video on YouTube, I saw a young man attempting to hatch an egg. He makes a cute little incubator and takes at most care of the egg. The young man is fortunate to have the egg hatch in his palm. As soon as the little cutie comes out of the shell, it shakes its little wings with no feathers; It blinks its eyes. It gazes around and has a look at the young man's face. The young man is delighted with joy. He gives water to the little cutie. The days pass. The man jumps in fields, ponds to get caterpillars and worms for the newborn. The video ends with the little bird following him inside the house wherever he goes.

This is an incredible example of how love evolves consciously and unconsciously. For this empathy towards the little bird, the young man commits to protect and care for it. He takes the hardship to feed it and nurture it.

On the other hand, the nestling finds someone who quenches its thirst, who feeds it when he is hungry. The only known person known to the little one is the young man. The little one feels comfortable with the young man. Thus a bond is formed.

Love is like energy. It can neither be created nor be destroyed. It can be transferred from one form to another.