By Tareq Adnan
“Evolution is a mystery
Full of change that no one sees
Clock makes a fool of history
Yesterday's too long ago…”
(Motorhead)
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”
“Umm… are you going to eat that? I hope not… And why are you quoting Shakespeare? We came here to eat,”
“What?”
“I mean, you have been putting on some weight. I wouldn't recommend eating something so oily,”
“WHAT?”
“Look, ok, you can have the French fries, but I wouldn't trust that salad you ordered. It's deep-fried. And it's that weird green colour…”
“…”
(A few minutes later…)
“That was uncalled for… and she left without saying goodbye. Umm… waiter, you wouldn't have a pair of tweezers on you would you? And stop staring at me like that man! I'm sure it happens to a lot of people!”
With Valentine's Day drawing ever so near, some of us who more practically inclined have started noticing how the human race is going to the cows. Even cows have less complex mating rituals. The overused term 'love' being thrown about has become so saturated into the atmosphere that it's becoming hard to breathe for the asthmatic.
And because pragmatic people like us are a vengeful bunch, we decided to prove once and for all that love is arbitrary. Which is why we Wiki-ed it… The length of the article we came across was… unnerving. It seems there is valid reason to claim that we have always been crazy and monkeys are so much better off. They don't have to buy over expensive plush toys for one thing.
“Love is not a single feeling but an emotion built from two or more feelings. Anything vital to us creates more than one feeling, and we also have feelings about our feelings (and thoughts about our feelings).”
Hmm… A more complex emotion there never was. At least with minor feelings such as, hate, anger and disgust, you know where you stand. All you have to do to abate all three of them and are avoid the cause and find a plush toy to murder.
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The problem with 'love' is, it apparently is a lot of feelings and thoughts about feelings and no wonder people commit suicide so often. In fact 'love' has been so confounding that people have actually written books about how it came about to be so mind-numbingly inexplicable. For example, what makes a virulent, confident and intelligent young man spend most of his hard earned tuition money on something as inane as a commercialized version of a grizzly bear without the grizzly just so his girl won't pout on the 14th?
It became so irrational, that people like Sydney L. W. Mellen went back to speculating about primitive humans and what they did on Valentines. Failing to figure out what drives such passionate insanity come February, he settled on species survival that sort of deepened into gluttony.
In actuality what Mellen came up with was the speculation that “species survival depended on primitive emotional bonding between breeding pairs of proto-humans. Such bonding enhanced survival rates, and in a few hundred generations passionate love emerged as a defining human attribute.”
And in the end of the incredibly ambivalent article, all we figured out was that science has given up. A lot of people tried to explain, even bringing in space science such as the use of dimensions, but they still failed. They did manage to however medically translate love as a state where the brain tends to lose control of quite a few of its lobes.
We too at the RS gave up. And then took to staring at walls. And then started daydreaming… and it's amazing how vivid daydreams can be. For example, due to our obsessive nature we started imagining what it would be like if Romeo came across the modern Casanova… Or more appropriately, Juliet being wooed by the modern insensitive male.
The setting is akin all the settings of a normal Romeo and Juliet play, with Juliet on the balcony and Romeo on his knees.
Juliet:
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
Romeo:
Umm… Are you gonna eat that? I mean, it's all shrubs, I get it, but shouldn't you be paying attention to your weight? You're getting anorexic woman. And what's this you say about not being a Capulet? So? I'm a Smith.
Juliet:
'Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone And yet no farther than a wan-ton's bird, That lets it hop a little from his hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silken thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Romeo:
Bird? What bird? Look, I get the fact that you like bird watching, but don't drag me into it.
Juliet:
Sweeood night till it be morrow.
Romeo:
Yeah um, look, can I have my DVD back?
Daydreams are surreal.
