Chowrangi

The statements ‘I love you’ and ‘I like you’ are apparently identical and sometimes used in place of each other. But in truth, they represent two very different phenomena. 

Some people rock music while others go for soft romantic songs, the ‘liking’ can be traced back to their disposition. A rock music fan is usually excited and restless while romantic music lovers are usually serene. This also varies with the mood of a person, the slowest guy around wouldn’t like a soft song to be played in a dance party. Liking is a response to an outward object’s connection with one’s own mind. If you like blondes, you would like every blonde person or at least give her a plus point just for the hair, because your mind is conditioned to respond with a ‘positive’ emotion on perception of what you already like. Similarly, if you believe that a policeman is bound to be insincere, you would dislike every policeman and treat every one of them the same way before you even get to know them. So, liking is a reaction to information perceived and hence can be and is changed as soon as inner beliefs about the information is changed. This change can come in many ways. Let’s take the same example as above, you like blondes and make friends with one. But she deceives you, now not only your belief about her but also your beliefs about her properties would change. Your beliefs about blondes might change and hence creating new beliefs your criteria for likeness will change. So although likeness is a response to outward objects, it comes from within. It’s like a reflected ray but influenced by the mirror’s properties changing the mirror’s properties every time a ray is incident. 

 

Love, on the other hand, is a purely subjective experience. If you love your family, you don’t love them because they are pretty or helpful (although that may contribute to your likeness of them and eventually to love). But the emotion of love is unidirectional. It springs from the heart and does not get ‘checked’ by the negative beliefs and flows to the object pure and unhindered. So love is not a response but a production, forming and flowing due to choice only. The story does not end here; likeness and love are closely related and have a large effect on each other. It happens so many times that you start liking something because your beloved likes it. Or you start to like someone because they share some habit with you and slowly you start loving them even after the habit is no more. Likeness is what moves a relationship into shape while love is the source (the battery) with which a relationship sustains and grows. One may produce other but the process is amazingly dependent on choice. Next time you like something, try mixing love and find new dimensions to it and vice versa.

Other posts by Shady

• Lover or businessman? - March 23rd, 2006
• Dreaming and Imagining - March 20th, 2006
• Pick a guard, any guard - March 13th, 2006
• Tenancy Agreement - March 12th, 2006
• Analogy of the human being - March 12th, 2006
• Nature of God - March 12th, 2006
• Unchanging constants - March 12th, 2006
• Geography of happiness - March 9th, 2006
• Bad is GOOD ! - March 9th, 2006
• The Barber Shop - March 7th, 2006

Technorati Tags: music, Love