He reads romance, she swears by Mathematics.
He believes in love till infinity, for her it is just a symbol defining something larger than any natural number.
His life has been defined by love stories, she claims to have empirical evidence that he...
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I have often read stories and watched movies where the couple in love could read each other's eyes, which got me thinking; if we had to define their love, how would we go about it? Which word or phrases would best describe their love for each other, what could possibly capture the beauty, the depth and the profoundness of the love that they have for each other?
I thought about it for quite some time and finally decided that their love is till infinity, forever and beyond eternity and set about elaborating these phrases. And that is when I landed myself in a nice hot soup.
I found the phrases a little clichéd, felt that most of the readers would do too and hence decided to try defining the terms a little objectively. That is when I realised not only were those terms clichéd, they are downright ridiculous. How? Read on.
Love till infinity
But what does 'love till infinity' mean exactly? Some argue that in plain English, at least, it does not mean anything. It is intended to be an exaggeration in speech to indicate an intensity of passion, but infinity is not a place that one can reach. Some agree with Shakespeare's quote, "I love you beyond measure", which can be related to human reality within space, but infinity is merely a mathematical concept that lacks the specificity of successful poetry. Poets, storytellers and scriptwriters, of course, write whatever they like.
And then there is the over-used and much-flogged phrase "I love you to infinity and beyond'' (seriously, the acronym for this phrase is ILYTIAB and has a place in the Urban Dictionary) which in the physical sense is an impossibility. So how do we use an impossibility to describe love, or does it denote that it is a love so profound that it is impossible to define it?
Love for ever
'Love for ever' - is another cliché! I mean how can love be forever when the people who profess to love each other are mere mortals and will sooner or later follow the other clichéd line - "Dust thou art, to dust returned!" After all, the only thing that is unstoppable is time and nothing does last forever. Maybe it is simply a word, a catchphrase to denote something that cannot be expressed adequately in the limited languages that we mortals use to communicate.
Love beyond Eternity
And this is the best of the lot - Eternity means timelessness and can be extended to mean something that has no beginning or end. So how does one love beyond something, which in itself has no beginning or end? What does this paradox, love you beyond endlessness mean?
Then again, agreed that these are clichés, but they are universally accepted and are well accepted apt descriptions. So do I stick to my original stance of using these phrases? Or was there a simpler explanation for that profound emotion, so fundamental to our very existence, which has been lost in the mists of time? And we humans use the most flowery language to express that emotion because we are unable to accept its very simplicity? As one of my very favourite songs goes:
