A Journal Of Thoughts

"قمة العظمه…..أن تبتسم وفي عينيك الف دمعه… The pinnacle of excellence is to smile when your eyes have..."

photosyncthesis — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:14:17 +0000

“قمة العظمه…..أن تبتسم وفي عينيك الف دمعه…
The pinnacle of excellence is to smile when your eyes have one thousand tears”

- Arabic Proverb (via arabswagger)

"Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say."

photosyncthesis — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:14:00 +0000

“Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say.”

- Mitch Albom, Have a Little Faith: The Story of a Last Request (via larmoyante)

THE WORST KIND

photosyncthesis — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:10:59 +0000

There’s something terribly tragic about unrequited love. Some have even committed suicide over it. Yet in a sense what could be more romantic? An “untried” love is virtually without limits precisely because, never really having begun, there’s been no time for disillusionment to set in. The beloved—frequently distant, uninterested, unavailable, or unapproachable—can remain an object of indefinite idealization.

One of the most curious things I encountered in selecting the quotes below was their remarkable inconsistency. At times I even found them sharply contradictory. No surprise, really. For there are few subjects as peculiarly subjective, or ambiguous, as love in general—and unrequited love in particular. Which explains why the tone of these quotes ranges from bitterness and cynicism to the most heart-rending melancholy and despair. Unquestionably, there are few experiences more painful than realizing that the person for whom you have such adoring sentiments doesn’t, can’t, or won’t return your so-committed, so-impassioned feelings.As a lover it’s difficult not to project your boundless feelings of fondness onto the beloved. But when it becomes blatant that these feelings aren’t recognized—and if so, certainly aren’t reciprocated—the ensuing disappointment and hurt can be immeasurable. The famous line, “She [or he] doesn’t even know I exist,” is so familiar because the experience itself is so common. Which one of us hasn’t at some time experienced the pangs of a love that’s not reciprocated?

It’s no wonder that so many poets have written about unrequited love. For when their emotions have become so overwhelming, so agitating, anxiety-laden, or consuming, how could they not be driven to search for just the right words, images, and metaphors to express—or better,release—such intense feelings? And, almost like a bloodletting, such a discharge is likely to offer them at least some immediate relief. So throughout history, writers have painstakingly sought to transform their raw, overpowering feelings into a language as poignant, as “touching” and “moving,” as this excruciatingly frustrating experience must have been for them. And their deeply personal need to give voice to such anguish was probably as urgent as the anguish itself.

Employing a somewhat expansive definition of unrequited love, I’ve included quotes on such intimately related experiences as broken hearts, lost love, hopeless or forbidden love, obsessive love, scorned love, and (yes) puppy love as well.

Unrequited love is also the stuff that popular songs are made of. But having examined the lyrics of many dozens of songs centering on this woeful theme, I had to conclude that they really didn’t transcend the merely sentimental or melodramatic. The emotions rendered by the words seemed true enough, but the verses could hardly be seen as poetic. While they may have (though simplistically) mirrored age-old truths, they reflected them mostly through cliches and platitudes. So in the end I chose to exclude modern-day songwriters and stay with what, in both prose and poetry, seemed most memorable on this most eternal—and universal—of subjects.

Anyhow, here are the best quotations I could find. I think you’ll find them not only suggestive, but evocative as well.

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. ~ Charles Schultz [actually, Charlie Brown, in “Peanuts”]

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishmentwe can bring on ourselves. ~ Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding

If only the strength of the love that people feel when it is reciprocated could be as intense and obsessive as the love we feel when it is not, then marriages would be truly made in heaven. ~ Ben Elton, Stark

Unrequited love does not die; it’s only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded. For some unfortunates, it turns bitter and mean, and those who come after pay the price for the hurt done by the one who came before. ~ Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischi

Every broken heart has screamed at one time or another: “Why can’t you see who I truly am?” ~ Shannon L. Alder

I had to get over [him]. For months now, a stone had been sitting on my heart. I’d shed a lot of tears over [him], lost a lot of sleep, eaten a lot of cake batter. [!] Somehow, I had to move on. [Life] would be hell if I didn’t shake loose from the grip he had on my heart. I most definitely didn’t want to keep feeling this way, alone in a love affair meant for two. Even if he’d felt like The One. Even if I’d always thought we’d end up together. Even if he still had a choke chain on my heart. ~ Kristan Higgins, All I Ever Wanted

When unrequited love is the most expensive thing on the menu, sometimes you settle for the daily special. ~ Miranda Kenneally, Catching Jordan

Unrequited love is a ridiculous state, and it makes those in it behave ridiculously. ~ Cassandra Clare

He could remember all about it now: the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly the consequences which, in thesewise moods, he had always foretold were certain to follow, if he ever did make such a fool of himself. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

One is never too old to yearn. ~ Italian Proverb

Unrequited love is the infinite curse of a lonely heart. ~ Christina Westover

I realized that one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced. ~ Barbara Pym, Excellent Women

But that afternoon he asked himself, with his infinite capacity for illusion, if such pitiless indifference might not be a subterfuge for hiding the torments of love. ~ Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Let no one who loves be called unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow. ~ James Matthew Barrie

It’s delicious to have people adore you, but it’s exhausting, too. Particularly when your own feelings don’t match theirs.

~ Tasha Alexander, A Fatal Waltz

Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
Washington Irving

A mighty pain to love it is,
And ‘tis a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.

~ Abraham Cowley

The saddest thing in the world is loving someone who used to love you. ~ Anonymous

I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had. ~ from the TV series The Wonder Years

Self-love seems so often unrequited.

~ Anthony Powell

Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest:
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers:
Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers! ~ William S. Gilbert

I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. [That’s right: “lost,” not “loved”] ~ Samuel Butler

Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those whofear to love often find that want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life. ~ Merle Shan

You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back. ~ Anonymous

Most of you have been where I am tonight. The crash site of unrequited love. You ask yourself, How did I get here? What was it about? Was it her smile? Was it the way she crossed her legs, the turn of her ankle, the poignant vulnerability of her slender wrists? What are these elusive and ephemeral things that ignite passion in the human heart? That’s an age-old question. It’s perfect food for thought on a bright midsummer’s night. ~ Sybil Adelman

In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing. ~ Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

"I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not..."

photosyncthesis — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:00:07 +0000

“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”

- John Green, Looking for Alaska

"A whole lifetime was too short to bring out, the full flavour; to extract every ounce of pleasure,..."

photosyncthesis — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:57:01 +0000

“A whole lifetime was too short to bring out, the full flavour; to extract every ounce of pleasure, every shade of meaning.”

- Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (via fuckyeahvirginiawoolf)

"It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight."

photosyncthesis — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:55:00 +0000

“It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”

- Vladimir Nabokov (via restaurer)

PLATONIC

photosyncthesis — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 12:00:27 +0000

I knew it the first of the summer,
I knew it the same at the end,
That you and your love were plighted,
But couldn’t you be my friend?
Couldn’t we sit in the twilight,
Couldn’t we walk on the shore
With only a pleasant friendship
To bind us, and nothing more?

There was not a word of folly
Spoken between us two,
Though we lingered oft in the garden
Till the roses were wet with dew.
We touched on a thousand subjects—
The moon and the worlds above,—
And our talk was tinctured with science,
And everything else, save love.

A wholly Platonic friendship
You said I had proven to you
Could bind a man and a woman
The whole long season through,
With never a thought of flirting,
Though both were in their youth
What would you have said, my lady,
If you had known the truth!

What would you have done, I wonder,
Had I gone on my knees to you
And told you my passionate story,
There in the dusk and the dew?
My burning, burdensome story,
Hidden and hushed so long—
My story of hopeless loving—
Say, would you have thought it wrong?

But I fought with my heart and conquered,
I hid my wound from sight;
You were going away in the morning,
And I said a calm good-night.
But now when I sit in the twilight,
Or when I walk by the sea
That friendship, quite Platonic,
Comes surging over me.

And a passionate longing fills me
For the roses, the dusk, the dew;
For the beautiful summer vanished,
For the moonlight walks—and you.

I AM NOT YOURS

photosyncthesis — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 12:00:24 +0000

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love — put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

"THE SILENT LOVER"

photosyncthesis — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:01:16 +0000

To be in love and to say nothing about it – this seems to me the most elegant (and perhaps the only sensible) form of romantic attachment. It’s a sentiment poetry and music only occasionally address – the best pop song on this theme is The Band’s “It Makes No Difference” with the great line, “Now there’s no love as true as the love that dies untold” – but Walter Raleigh’s “The Silent Lover” keeps its own counsel even more eloquently.

Passions are likened best to floods and streams:
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;
So, when affections yield discourse, it seems
The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
They that are rich in words, in words discover
That they are poor in that which makes a lover.

Wrong not, sweet empress of my heart,
The merit of true passion,
With thinking that he feels no smart,
That sues for no compassion;

Since, if my plaints serve not to approve
The conquest of thy beauty,
It comes not from defect of love,
But from excess of duty.

For, knowing that I sue to serve
A saint of such perfection,
As all desire, but none deserve,
A place in her affection,

I rather choose to want relief
Than venture the revealing;
Where glory recommends the grief,
Despair distrusts the healing.

Thus those desires that aim too high
For any mortal lover,
When reason cannot make them die,
Discretion doth them cover.

Yet, when discretion doth bereave
The plaints that they should utter,
Then thy discretion may perceive
That silence is a suitor.

Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne’er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.

Then wrong not, dearest to my heart,
My true, though secret, passion:
He smarteth most that hides his smart,
And sues for no compassion.

"The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to..."

photosyncthesis — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 02:37:06 +0000

“The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely.”

- Charlotte Brontë (via vanished)

"Lately I’ve been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love..."

photosyncthesis — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 02:55:08 +0100

“Lately I’ve been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love the way I want to love, and what I need to learn to love that way, and who I need to become to become the kind of love I want to be…….and when I break it all down, when I whittle it into a single breath, it essentially comes out like this: Before I die, I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they know they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.”

- Andrea Gibson (via jexjes-jessica)

OCTOBER

photosyncthesis — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:18:44 +0100

Tempted and twenty
and lighter than air
We were limitless then
but then I didn’t care
‘cause the river still ran
at the end of your street
and the earth didn’t turn
unless churned by our feet

Before I feared flying
and you fell from grace
there was something like hope
in the look on your face
when you showed me your scars
and I showed you my lines
and the blood turned to ink
down the length of your spine

But my second-hand heart
and your third-person views
wore the shine from our souls
and the soles from our shoes
‘til the world wouldn’t wait
and the river ran dry
and each hollow I love you
came out a goodbye

And I’ve written you young
frozen happy and free
just one more pretty crack
in my glass memory
And I’ve written me honest
still lonely and scared
We were limitless then
but then I didn’t care

IF WE MUST BE

photosyncthesis — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 00:14:13 +0100

If we must be memories
moments carved out of time
by careless blades indifferent
to wounds they leave behind
let us be of golden days
and hearthside autumn nights
of eyes that caught each flame
and robbed it of its living light

If we must be whispers
along empty midnight halls
faded smiles in gilded frames
to line their somber walls
let our breath then find the weight
of words we left unsaid
and send them forth as warnings
to the sleeping from the dead

If we must be monuments
down cemetery paths
poets, lovers, harbingers
reduced to epitaph
let no marble letter
stand a sad regret betrayed
If we must be memories
let us be yet unmade

MOMENTS IN TIME

photosyncthesis — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:50:04 +0100

As I grow older, I sometime sit and reflect, on those meaningful moments of my youth, and of those passionate and at times lustful encounters, and wonder why they lasted but a moment in time.

Perhaps it was a need that simply needed to be filled, of youthful and ranging hormones, and yet not all of those moments were confined, too indiscretions of youth.

I ask myself, were they simply lustful interludes, or were they meaningful encounters that enriched my life? A capsulated moment filled with passion love, and understanding, and yet not quit a relationship, and if pricked or torn quickly evaporates, and those intimate words whispered only moments ago, drown in a sea of recrimination.

And yet I wouldn’t give up a moment of those brief encounters, for those meaningful affairs of the heart, with all of it’s ranging passions and lustful interludes as given me insight, into my own soul, and a better understanding of what a true relationship should be, in that it can never be judged within the momentary glow of a candle, or within the sweet taste of wine, and it should never be confused with a whispered word of passion, or the lustful moan of lovemaking.

For those are simply wonderful distractions, snapshots, that in time will quickly fade, like the dawning of a day with its magnificent

sunrise. It’s the residue of those moments, within those brief encounters that shape our understanding of how a true relationship should be, they are the guideposts to a more meaningful encounter, and without them we cannot judge, we cannot discriminate, and by their very nature they simply run their course, in an awkward moment that quickly ends… as if it never was.

"Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or..."

photosyncthesis — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:54:16 +0100

“Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.” I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever.”

- Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (via talkativolive)

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."

photosyncthesis — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:00:21 +0100

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

- Rudyard Kipling (via eternalsages)

"Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue..."

photosyncthesis — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 11:53:41 +0100

“Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way. So you should not be extremists, but try to be near to perfection and receive the good tidings that you will be rewarded.”

- Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 2, Number 38

NEW SCHOOL

photosyncthesis — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:58:39 +0100

Going to a new school somewhere I never went,
This couldn’t happen to me, this I never even dreamt
Thoughts line up in my head,
The ones that I truly dread
How might my new class mates be
Would they pick on me,
Or would they tease me

How many times did my mother tell me to stay strong,
That only the things in your head are what make you act wrong,
And also that things change due to the way we think,
Great things can suddenly be destructed under the rate of a blink,
Just because the way we thought was not right or just.

I know better, to stay strong and happy,
But that cannot possibly happen under all this anxiety.

How can I suddenly move out of a place,
Which was like a home to me
Now I might fall into a rat race,
Where I might find no one like me

My former school suddenly seems like the best place now,
Although things weren’t great at first I know that that is a place I truly love,
I had taken a very long time to adjust and make friends,
All that has completely gone waste, now that no one will come to save me even once

But things won’t get that worse I now seem to realize
If someone does hurt me I can pay deaf ears and close my eyes
I decide to make the first move while making new friends
Hey maybe it won’t be as bad I thought, I might even set new trends.

A BRIEF ENCOUNTER

photosyncthesis — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:55:51 +0100

A whispered word,
a moment in time,
a passing glance,
a dimpled smile,
a longing look,
long flaxen hair,
a seasoned past…
a time to share.

While the years between us
could not be denied,
we found for moment
we could hold back time.

How odd our encounter
must have seemed,
as we quietly spoke,
of lost loves and dreams.

We shared a few moments,
but our time was brief,
for your time to explore
was reaching its peak.

I knew that our friendship
could never last,
for you were much younger,
and my time had past.

Where once stood an awkward
young girl so unsure
now stands a young beauty,
a woman for sure,

so poised and relaxed,

you’ve taken the lead,
a blossoming flower,
from a nurtured seed.

I look at you now,
and I fondly recall
the twang in your voice
as you stood by the wall.

The evening rush
had become our game
and sadly now,

it’s not same.

Like all good things,
it came to an end,
and while we seldom speak now,
I’m sure you know,
you’ll always be

a special…“friend”.

By Robert Amoroso

"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is..."

photosyncthesis — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 00:05:03 +0100

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

- Haruki Murakami