Life is highly dependent on this thing called “Heart” - both in the biological sense and in the other sense, when we refer to the emotional center of our brain and simply call it “the heart”.
People often say things like “listen to your heart”, “home is where the heart is”, “the heart wants what it wants” and many more such phrases. Now when you take these phrases literally, it sets out funny conversations in our minds. Something that goes like:
Okay, I need to listen to my heart, I am listening but all I can hear is thump thump! I don’t hear an answer to my dilemma.
Home is where the heart is, the heart is in my body, so is that my address? Well, it is technically where I live and will continue to live as long as I live. But, I thought home was a place where I felt comfortable and could be myself. Did someone give me the wrong directions?! *opens Google Maps*
The heart wants what it wants. Blood? More blood? Fully functioning arteries? A massage?? Yes, they do massage the organ to resuscitate a non-responsive heart in surgery (source: Grey’s Anatomy)
The heart in that “other” sense is extremely complicated, in every psychological, philosophical sense possible. If this other heart is not capable of functioning properly, if this heart does not know what it wants, or where it’s home is, then even the original heart is likely to be in acute distress. Clearly then, it becomes essential to take care of both our hearts.
Have you ever wondered why the heartbeat looks like the way it does on a hospital monitor?
I can think of two major ways to break it down. Firstly, life is a continuous function. Ofcourse, it has to be, no one dies and comes back to life and then dies again. Unless our lives were a soap opera, it would be impossible. Secondly, life is not constant. There are various ups and downs, until the beats stop and the monitor flatlines. The downs represent the voids, and the ups represent our attempts at filling those voids. The greater the fall, the more difficult it is to bring the graph up again.
Life is but a series of voids, one after the other. The catch here is that some can be filled with time, while some cannot be filled even in our entire lifetime. A void is created when we lose something or someone dear to us. It can be a family member, a friend, a job, or anything else we as humans are capable of being attached to. Of course, losing a loved one is an irreparable loss and we may take as long as we want to accept it. But, when you think about it, the greatest void in one's life is created when a person loses himself or herself in the process of filling all other voids.
Isn’t it ironic? Losing yourself in the process of finding something else? Now, you may ask what “losing yourself” feels like. In the simplest of words, it means not being present to our own mental and physical desires and needs. When a person becomes so involved and attached to something or someone, he or she sometimes tends to forget who they themselves were in the first place. We try to change ourselves, adapt to certain behaviors, become insecure or possessive the more and more we attach ourselves. The thought of losing that entity becomes the biggest threat to our peace. Slowly, without realising, we give it all the control over ourselves. But, think about it, is this particular entity worth it? Is it worth losing your peace of mind and your identity? The reason we lose our peace here is because we have let a few of our voids overlap. We mix our priorities, as to which void we need to fill first. This only makes the void larger and larger, only sucking in more out of our lives.
Popular opinion suggests that one should never let another entity determine what happens to their life. They say our lives are a result of our own choices and actions. If life is a car ride only we can be in the driver’s seat. The reality is that sometimes the driver tends to lose control or the car brakes fail or someone else causes an accident that harms us and our vehicle. My point is that despite the popular opinion, we tend to lose control of our lives. Many factors can cause this which were and are outside our control like hurtful actions of others, death of a loved one, past traumas, deteriorating mental health. Of course, the damage in most cases can be repaired, but sometimes we lose some important opportunities and consequently, hope. Whatever the reason for any loss, one thing it does leave behind is a void that becomes very difficult to handle. A few of these voids together can make life a very dark place for a person.
The trinity of our hearts, lives and voids juggle us among themselves till they can no more. I don’t know if the voids are ever filled. I don’t know if we get a second chance. I don’t know if our mind ever finds peace. But I know this that once the monitor flatlines, nothing matters. What we have is now, and the thump thump of our hearts to remind us that we are in fact, very much alive.
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