Lambent Love

candle

A friend once told me ‘I like lambent love’. That statement never quite left me. And I guess it never will.

For the vocabulary challenged people, lambent means “running or moving lightly over a surface” which translates to “dealing lightly and gracefully with a subject” if you talk about love.

Lambent love would then be, like the warmth which dances beautifully on the edge of the candle. If you put your hands in the middle of the candle wick, all you would get is a burn. Why would you be someone who loves their own miseries and finds solace in their deepest depressions and troughs! It is like developing a Stockholm syndrome. Now who would want that? On the other hand, you can always enjoy the outer halo of a candle. It gives you joy, you can play with it and most importantly, it gives you the warmth that you can handle and not the burns which scar you.

Why shouldn’t love be like that? Soft and easy. Not demanding, not complaining, not nagging, not high on expectations! Why can’t we love more like we breathe. Why can’t it be simple. I know the love nazis around me would say ‘You have never been in love. Who are you to decide whether it is that simple or not?’ Frankly dear, I don’t give a damn. I’m a sucker for the kind of love I believe in; for the lambent kind.

I somehow never understood the mad, passionate love which existed sans a need to be someone, to have an individuality, a name, a storehouse of value that you create for others. I somehow never understood the love that requires a lot of pursuing, cajoling, convincing, compromising, confronting and a thousand other Cs for that matter.

As I said, I am a sucker for the kind of love I believe in. If it does not inspire you, it is not worth it. If, your conversations have 90% of thoughtful talking which is aimed at not saying something that might hurt the other person and result in you spending probably the next few hours placating them, it is not worth it. If you can’t speak your mind, it is not worth it. If you cannot talk sense, cannot talk value, it is not worth it. If you cannot share with each other your future plans which involve what you are going to do individually and not what color would you choose for the curtains of your ‘together’ house, it is not worth it (that color can still be decided when you actually go shopping. Inspiration won’t wait).

Lambent love, is so beautiful because; it gives you the ability to NOT fall in love with the idea of falling in love, it saves you from the OCD of love. Rather, it helps you build a sensibly impeccable world around you and your loved one which has enormous space for all your people. Lambent love gives you and your special someone a beautiful opportunity to look forward together in a common direction, gives you a common passion – a passion to find your own self.

I have always believed, “That which does not inspire you and make you a better person is not love. Just attraction, fatal attraction”. Lambent love is what gives you the power to rise above the pettiness in love (which is mostly prevelant these days) and hence inspires you. It’s like – you really like someone, they make you want to be someone better. How would this ‘want to be better’ ever diminish till you continue to exist, irrespective of whether the person who ignited that fire is there or not!

A candle never extinguishes itself out. It keeps on burning, flames swaying lambently even if the source of ignition moves away. It burns to give light till its last drop of wax and last strand of wick (if the wind Gods don’t interfere i.e.). It lives till its last breath to do what it was created to do – fill the world with its own little light, create a dent with its own little strength.

If you want to love, love like that. Be lambent. Be awesome. For, love is not a fight always. Sometimes, it is the courage to let the other person love you back, to let the other person come to terms with their own true self before they embrace you, accept you, forgive you. Sometimes, love is just like enjoying the warmth of the candle top, like playing with playful fire, like letting go and holding on to your self only. Sometimes, love is just lambent.

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