‘Relationship best suit those don’t expect too much from them.’
Back in January, I read ‘The Meaning of Life’ by The School of Life and stated it as ‘a timeless guide to a purposeful living’. These short, and thereby handy books from TSOL, founded by Swiss philosopher and writer Alain de Botton, provide really articulate and complete knowledge upon the many subjects and questions that we tend to face in our lives. My plan is to read more of these short self-help books from TSOL throughout this year, so as to revive the wisdom I had gotten from the videos of TSOL’s YouTube channel by watching for many years now.
Like these books, their videos too offer some of the most consoling and aiding pieces of advice and perspective when one direly needs them. Yet here arises a problem for me: since I have watched most of TSOL’ videos on YouTube and therefore have become very familiarized with their content, reading their books seem to me like reading the transcript of those videos I had watched either recently or years ago.
Although it doesn’t take away from the importance or urgency of what their philosophy says (I believe everyone who reads these books would be intellectually amused by knowing that they aren’t alone, and even might come to feel wiser themselves as a result), however for me particularly, the familiarity of reading the same things I have listened to does become repetitive at times.
Relationships, they are tough. But so is being single. Speaking for and from myself, I have brutally known and have come to accept both these facts. I still find myself unbearably lonely at times; sometimes so intensely that I feel the light going out of my horizon. Maybe it has something to do with my personality, or zodiac sign, but being alone and feeling lonely is tough.
Although I feel the strong urge to deny the idea that I started my relationships because I was lonely – since that would unauthenticate my Romantic ideals of being someone on the pure basis of love only – maybe there’s some truth to it anyways; however, regardlessly, I found my relationships to be differently but equally as painful, whether the love was mutual or unrequited.
This book says that our relationships suck because we’ve been deeply influenced by the ideals set during the Romantic era, against which the reality of our relationships feel totally miserable and wrong. This book is as much about the hard work of love as it is anti-Romantic. All of the twenty chapters pick one aspect of love and explains how the Romantics have set the norms of what love should be, and then kindly beacons us to become accepting of the harsher realities.
It’s really amazing how much insight it offers into the otherwise impenetrable and complex nature of love in relationships, yet at the same time it becomes equally as overwhelming.
Becoming aware of all these difficulties and draining business of love, no matter how kindly explained, begins to have a discouraging effect on one’s ability to love – even more so, on one’s possible chances of finding someone to whom one could then communicate all this wisdom and thereby live an achievably content life with.
I’m not sure whether this book will make you a better lover, but it shall definitely make you a more ‘aware’ one.
Ratings:
5/5 ***** April 12, 2021_