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Funny in a Sad Way

Life is a funny thing – strange words you might think. And you might question. Funny as in ‘Ha! Ha!’ or funny as in strange. Let me clarify. Funny in a sad sense; I mean it to mean a contradiction in terminology.

Our lives are filled with inconsistency; our emotions towards life are Jack in the Boxes, never static, always on the move, up and down, up and down, our lives are in constant motion, and each of us have numerous facets, many of which we hide even from ourselves, and yet, we are all very similar. We are filled with contrary emotions when it comes to love.

For some, love is like a butterfly, flutter, flutter, flutter and it is gone, and we move on, but that is applicable mainly to the love of a man and woman. With children, it is somewhat different. That love represent more of the chrysalis – cocoon type of love, and parents very rarely leave that spot – love of our children is unconditional, giving of ourselves to our next generation, but could that be classed as hereditary? Are we programmed to do it for the survival of our own genes? The way that nature surreptitiously disguises our continual existence and calls it loves.

I have questioned myself many times what love actually is, what are the ingredients that makes up the mix? You can’t eat, smell, hold it. Physical it is not, but an abstraction, a firing in the brain of wanting the object of that love to be near to you.
A longing for that thing or person that fills the mind with warmth, and to have the feeling reciprocated, makes it even better, the bonus, a payback if you like. Though, it is not essential to make love happen, often love is one way, but it does make the emotion that much more powerful and deeper if there is reciprocity. And yet, often, we just fritter it away by our own actions and feel sad when it flies away from us, and often we don’t know how to get it back, lost in a world of our own making.

Some believe love is a physical sexual feeling with a partner, a sense of belonging: to own and control that person. We can hold emotion towards things – animals – inanimate objects. Your home, car, money, prestige, fame, recognition, adulation, have all been loved in some degree over the ages.

From a surgical viewpoint, love is but a chemical reaction in the brain and little else, but for me that is a journey a little far, a too simplistic and naive view of life and love. A living thing – a person, an animal, is more than a chemical. With a person, love can be as deep as a touching of two souls. For those of you who have ridden that horse, you’ll know to what I’m referring – I’ve been there, the ride can be bumpy but well worth the trip – it is one of the great wonders of life. Feelings and emotions are real, as real as beaches, mountains, trees, and far more beautiful.
You wouldn’t give your life for a beach, a mountain or a tree, no matter how beautiful, but you would, and often give it with a glad heart for love, if it meant saving that person whom you love. We all have experienced these feelings, every one of us in some measure – more or less, most people wouldn’t willingly give their life for an object, but would for a person, but here again, nothing is that  straightforward. Millions throughout history have given their life for an ideal, the love of democracy is but one example.

Some demonstrate only a love for money, – sad, but true – and place it above all else, and yes, they would die in the getting of it. Everything pales into insignificance when it comes to money for these people, and quite a few, who have won and lost it, can’t live without it and commit suicide rather than face a future alone without the crutch of wealth to ease their pain.

Can you start to see why I believe life is funny in a sad sense?
Now I’ll get to the crux of the matter – the wonder -to share with you what love means to me. To answer that age-old question, I will refer to my father. A far wiser person than I’ll ever be, and what it meant to him.

But first, I need to set the scene. When I was young and in the garden with my father, with whom I spent a lot of time, he told me when he was young that once he found a thrush’s nest with five little chicks inside. The parents had been killed, and my father removed the nest and chicks and placed them in a box.

They belonged to him, he had given them life, at the least, he had certainly saved them from death, so he reared them, and then he let them go, and of course, they flew away.

“Did you not love the birds daddy?” I asked.

“Of course,” he forcefully replied.

“Why let them go? They would be dead without you, they belong to you, owe you their life.”

He smiled a little, I can see that smile even now, and he said.
“You have overlooked one main point: they never belonged to me in the first place. They belong to the land and the countryside. I was only helping them on their way. It was their time to move on, just as your time will come to fly the nest and make your way in the world. To deny anyone this right is to deny them their freedom.”

“Did you ever see the birds again?” I asked.

He was quite shocked at this question.

“This is their garden; they were born here. This garden belongs to them; they are a part of the garden as much as that tree,” he said, pointing to one of the trees. “If they are still in the garden and you see them every day,” I said innocently, “they are not free, otherwise, they would be gone.”

He lit his pipe, thought for a minute and answered. “Freedom is about the ability to choose where you wish to be, to spend time to suit yourself. To be free, you must be there by your own free will.”

I replied. “By letting the birds go free, you gave them different options, and they chose to stay, so the act of giving them freedom resulted in them staying. They were captives in their own garden, since that is where they wished to be.”
My father smiled at this comment, and looked round the garden in satisfaction. “You’ve got it,” he said. “If you wish to keep something close to you, give it the ability to fly away, but make the staying a lot better.”

So for me love is about giving, unconditional giving, and like the birds in my father’s garden, it will boomerang back to you with a ten-fold happiness.
My father’s words repeated from my first published novel, “Of Boys, Men and Mountains.”

In “The Tour,” my latest novel, I’ve taken love a stage further, contrasted it with hate, greed and jealousy. Lanky, one of the main characters, is unassuming, sees only the good in people, whereas Ron, another main character, is all self, two opposites; their emotions, motivations, the way they see and value life and sex, and how they see and value love. I’ve explored in depth and show the angle by which they see things and the way they play them out to conclusion.

Check out  the story and leave a message on my blogsite http://roytomkinson.blogspot.com, or tweet me on Twitter, @RoyTomkinson, alternatively, contact my publisher and they will pass it on.

www.strategicbookpublishing.com/TheTour.html

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