Sweet Lies

"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence"

–H.L. Mencken

SWEET LIES always mask the bitter truth. Whether in life or in love, the truth isn’t always as appealing as the lies in which our thoughts comfort ourselves. But lies, as to their nature, do not last long; a tower stacked without cement: it hides its weakness with the façade of height and magnificence. Sooner or later, lies will crumble underneath its own foundation. Why, then, do we drown ourselves with the fleeting lies our thoughts make up? Why, then, do we choose to live in ignorance of these lies? The answer
is that reality, no matter how we justify it, is unreasonable; it fails to comprehend to our human concepts of justice.

Why does a child of tender age lose their parents in an accident? Do we say that it is fair? Was the child at fault? No. We choose to live behind the mask of the lies for us to forget the injustice that reality offers. We enjoy the fantasies and ideals we make up of the people and events around us. This may be the only safeguard to madness for some while for others it is their way of running away from their reality. We constantly, unconsciously or consciously, fool ourselves.

Love does not differ from this reality; in fact, it relishes in it. Countless rejections, failures and hopes, coupled by the hunger of having meaningful relationships, mold our perception of what love should be for us. But the flaw of this is that our concept of love is only centered on US: what we want, what we need, and our delicacy for romance. We see only ourselves in this idea of “love” in our minds. We fail to see the humanity in others and see them as our ideal, even when they’re far from it. A tragedy of wishes and desires; a one-sided love both ideally and realistically.

We hunger for connections. Our human nature forbids isolation; we will constantly find a need for a partner, friend or an ally, even if it means succumbing to their will. Such is truer in the case of our secluded and rejected neighbors and even truer that that trait is also within us, though we choose not to be conscious of it. When one loves, we see our beloved as someone that fulfills our ideal; they are the embodiment of love for us. These traits of what is an ideal love to us are what we impose on them even when, in hindsight, it may not be for them. We give in to the lies, to our imagination, that we’ve told ourselves of these persons; that they’ll be the one to fill the emptiness, the lacking, in our hearts, even if our attention isn’t desired by the other. This leads us to adore what is intangible, what is imagined. We begin to manifest the idea of becoming their partner even when we know nothing about them. Our fantasies become our comforting lies in our pursuit of love. It becomes an obsession for some, regret for those enlightened and a horrifying end for those who can’t accept reality.

But such love may not necessarily be unrequited, though it may not be kind as well. For some, a love of one-sidedness may not mean getting silence as an answer from our beloved. One may hear the “Yes” they’ve longed to hear but in reality they become only tools to the other; a superficial and fake relationship. But does one even realize this? Most likely, yes but chooses to turn away from it. For they’ve now accepted their own lies and is now even supported by the lie of confirmation by the other party. They become ignorant to the injustices that their ‘beloved’ is doing to them. They cope with only their imagination and false rationalizations. They let their hearts dictate what is it they see rather than using their minds, their intelligence, to see what is in front of them. In this way, fear has taken over their life: the fear of losing their so-called ‘love’; desperately hanging on to the status quo; a blind devotion.

In the end, when all is said and done and the euphoria of love diminishes, one will only see themselves as a fool in front of a mirror. One who has taken in all the pain within themselves and built all these lies in front of them, only to bury ourselves in regret and hatred. For such is the nature of love unbounded: “the triumph of imagination (our lies) over intelligence (reality).” Love is not taken in with only the heart: the mind must also be taken in, to draw the line between love and self-deception.