Saturday, August 18, 2007

The Search for Perfect Relationship

This blog is triggered by a discussion that happened few days ago on the MOR yahoogroup. We decided to continue discussions on the group after being asked by Dr. Fenn if we would like to continue. The reason why most of us chose to stay active on the group was probably best pointed out by Antra - "ppl suddenly become active when something frm the past....which they truly enjoyed is on the verge of being taken away....how one wants to hold onto all da gud things...gud things like XL..which u knw will never come back....but you just keep tryin to find it in all the new things u r doing..."

The discussion was on the topic - Is a perfect relationship possible? Can there be a person who loves you unconditionally? Can a relationship be totally transparent with no skepticism? Sir's view was that such a relationship is possible only with God. Nobody sees the world with your eyes because everybody has grown up with different experiences. All of us have an inherent need to be perfectly understood and sometimes this need wrecks havoc on relationships with people moving on from one relationship to another in need of perfect understanding which is not possible.

There were conflicting views on this. My view was very similar to Sir's view. We all tend to approach towards the ideal state of being perfectly open and transparent in a relationship with time. But Is that state achievable with humans at all?
When I look at my life, I have a set of very close friends with whom I have shared many things rather most of the things that happened/are happening in my life...but a there are a lot of things about myself that I have not shared and probably will not share with anyone ever. Not only this...there are several times when I don't like smthg abt the persons I am very close to (my parents, close friends, relatives) but still I don't convey to them in exact form and words what is going on in my mind! Only I am aware of my actual feelings...the other person just hears my words which I want him/her to hear. I am yet to see a situation in my life where I can say anything without thinking at all about how other person will take it. This is what I call Management of Relationships.

Last evening I asked one of my closest friends whether he/she would do me a favor. It was not for testing my theory or something but I genuinely had some work. He/she prankishly replied - only if it was 'reasonable'. I was slightly shocked at first instance. Why did he/she put this caveat? Doesn't he/she know I would probably never put my friend in a problem by asking for unreasonable favors. This conflict can probably only happen when I see something as reasonable while he/she sees it as unreasonable. I started thinking about some scenarios which I would see as reasonable but he/she might find unreasonable. I could not come up and even he/she could not come up with any such scenarios independently. However if we start discussing those scenarios mutually one by one, I am sure there will be many such conflicts. The simple reason, for not being able to come up with 'unreasonable' ideas, I believe is that we tend to test the reasonability/rationality of our idea or argument by our own perspective and assume it to be reasonable/rational for others too as per our own assessment. However it might not be so in practice and when actually confronted with that situation, my friend might find my request unreasonable/irrational which I assumed would be reasonable/rational for him/her.

What if the person accepts it despite finding it unreasonable or doesn't even get into the question of reasonability? What if his/her concern is not the reasonability of the favor but that it is for you and nothing else matters. This can happen repeatedly without exception only if the other person merges his/her own identity/existence with you. Though physically there but intellectually he/she does not exist any more in your presence. You only become center of the universe for him/her. The thoughts, the ego, the self of the person do not remain any more. Will this relationship be called 'perfect relationship'? Probably yes! But is it possible with humans?

PS: The day a person's existence is erased from his memory and merges with you, you become God for him. So technically the point that such a relationship is only possible with God still stays [:D]

5 comments:

Amit Agarwal said...

'Can there be a person who loves you unconditionally?' - Yes :)

Tushar Kataria said...

Before asking whether a person can love another unconditionally, I think we must ask ourselves whether we can love somebody unconditionally...If the answer is yes, my friend, you've just met the person :)

Dilip Menda said...

Hey Divya an extremely insightful article!!...Sometimes feel that we tend to form a picture of what a perfect relation would be and then not being able to find it with any fellow human soul we attribute the same to our relation with god, though we may not have a clear idea about our relation with god...Anyway i liked your thinking and the way you penned your thoughts...Great stuff!

Anonymous said...

though i wouldnt exactly agree with what you said in P.S. , nevertheless, very well written Divs..!

Harsh said...

Divya - the answer is an emphatic Yes. I truly believe, you have not seen a proper relationship till now.