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Shanghai Nights

A man who understands others is wise, but a man who understands himself is enlightened. It is for this reason that I write this evening, it is for this reason I write most evenings. It is the enlightenment of my heart which I strive for tonight. For to understand ourselves we must appease our heart, for it is the center of our enlightenment.

Right now I am so far away from home, it’s remarkable, and it shows. But regardless of distance and time I could never really stop missing her.

On the very first night here, I looked up at the night sky, it was a carpet of stars, shimmering and twinkling, almost like a fairy tale. The moment I chose to raise my head a shooting star streamed across the sky.

I made my wish, instinctively without a thought, I already knew what I will be wishing for, I wished for her. In everything I do, in everyone I see in every moment that passes, she is there, it makes you wonder that maybe love is a ghost that haunts our hearts. Because I am truly haunted. As much as I love to hold on to the feeling, it’s almost too painful, it wants to tear you apart, and it makes you weak.

I always believe and I still do that everything is in the mind, just as you can make someone fall out of love with you, you can also make someone fall in love with you. It just takes time. Which makes me wonder, what is truly love?

It is nothing more than a feeling and longing for a partner, for closeness. To not be alone, for someone to share every mundane moment, every special moment and all those in between. But why do we always fall for that one person, why is it them? What makes them the person that we desire?

I am in control? Am I not? If I want to let go, if I want to let her go, I can do it? But are these merely the words of an addict, when once confronted they claim that they are in control, they just chose to do which ever vice is gripping them. By choice? I wonder.

Me, I love to love, I love to have someone to long for, to want, to desire. To dream of all the moments I can share with them, to show them my world, my soul, and to lay it out for them to have. But why do I choose her?

I am in a battle within myself, constantly swinging from one extreme to the other, telling myself that I do not want her, I do not need her, and that I dislike her and attempting to run through all those things that make those few points true. But all it takes is the ghost of her smile to appear within my mind. With that simple scene, that small instant all that I feared, disliked and convinced myself I did not desire, disappeared. This is the weakness that love has over us; it makes us hasty, irrational.

A life of love is a painful one, especially when the ones we love disappoint us, it hurts, and it is constant. I do not recall someone ever being stroked by love without being hurt by it, that is the unfortunate bitter sweetness of love.

Yet we wish to continue and to pursue, as a life without it is one that leaves us lonely, no matter the number of friends, family or good times, none can really match those moments when the one you love is laying in your arms, having given themselves to you, allowing you into their world and their soul, a moment so mundane could be made so special by just feeling them close to you, and every other moment of hurt in your life could be pushed far into the distance.

That is what we seek and desire, those moments that bury everything else, that remove the complication, that primitive moment of connection between two people.

But I wish it was that simple, I wish she would forget, she would let go, and she would just let herself come and lay in my arms again. The day she left my side was so sweet, so bitter sweet, as I sat there in the airport and saw her leave, all those beautiful moments were there with me, but the haunting feeling that I knew, deep in my heart, that to her….they meant nothing.

But even remembering that moment of utter despair, I just have to look into myself and remind myself of her smile; it radiated instant happiness through every part of my body and soul. Yet alas I wish I could share with her what I felt, I wish I could give her just a fraction of that feeling.
But one has to submit to it, love is something that leaves you at your weakest, and I can understand her reluctance to do so, maybe it was her mistake, maybe it was mine, but it was defiantly ours.

I just wish that she would let me in, to let love make her weak, make her weak like my feelings for her make me, and I would give her the world, I would give her my soul, completely.

I remember once telling another lost soul, that once you feel that desire, that love for someone else, look into your heart and understand what it tells you, do not just block out that feeling, sometimes your heart makes you act irrationally but you must understand it, you must fight for it, and peruse it to it’s full desire or you shall never be complete. As the path to happiness is the path in which your heart is kept happy. The path of fulfillment is the one where your mind and heart are in balance.

But where do you strike the balance? when do you stop your hearts pursuit of what it truly desires, when do you submit to your mind and tell your heart that it is merely chasing those that wish nothing more than to roll it around their fingers like a toy and then once finished to simply toss it into the distance and walk away. Leaving your heart broken, shattered, and your dreams cloudy?

I have seen the result of pursuing ones heart too far, to have that belief, which tears you apart, it is incredibly couragious, and remarkably brave, but hand in hand with this braveness was foolishness. At some point you must listen to your mind and tell your heart that it is time to move on, it is time to forget. But that is easier said than done, especially when the mind is the divine comedian of our being, constantly teasing you with images, memories and moments, as if it cherishes seeing your heart cry out in pain.

But I think that is the real meaning or at least the practical methods of love, a mix and balance between mind and heart. You must let your heart have its desires, but you must allow the mind to contain the foolishness. The balance is merely fine tuned by ones own strength, some people are able to hurt more than others, and those are the ones that can continue to open their hearts after each painful moment. I am one of those foolish few, who’s foolishness is as high as their pain threshold, and for that reason, I cannot let her go, my hearts desire is too strong, and my mind too is in love, I cannot convince myself otherwise, I am willing to open it all up to her….regardless of the consequences.

That is why this beautiful shanghai night, as again I look up at those stars, as I feel the warmth caress every part of me, as I feel my heart beat that little bit faster, and my mind thinks of nothing but her, I write this story for you.

14th August 2007