The Consequences Of Loving Too Much

By Aisha Hasnain

I have put down the book that I was so dearly gifted by a friend – White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Fyodor (I prefer to call him for a more humanly touch than the scholarly Dostoevsky) was 26-27 years old when this novella by him got published in 1848. The Dreamer, the main character and the narrator of the story, is also 26 years old.

Another friend who is not fond of reading, I was astonished to know, had read White Nights long before I did. Such literature can be captivating. The narration by Dreamer in the story is full of beautiful and poetic, very poetic, literary devices. But such fiction if only could be treated as mere fiction written for leisurely purposes. Instead, we see ourselves in the protagonist. There are hazards to this kind of dreaming, day-dreaming. You replace your reality with an impractical, unreal and untruthful world for yourself and sometimes against other people in your life. Take it from someone who has been there and back.

Take, for instance, sweet sixteen Arooja with that dreamy imagination. Recently, this teen was rejoicing at the nickname, Noori or something, that the AI application in her phone has given her. It was scary to hear her speak about how she talks to it and how it reminds her in the evening that it was time for a certain scheduled task.

Clearly, AI won't cheat, it won't complain and it won't criticize. In short, it doesn't challenge you. This is also the reason why it has become easier to adopt pets instead of humans. Human connections are complicated, especially if we do not understand the concept of individualism and that not being in sync all the time with the other person is perfectly okay. But humans need each other and that is an inevitable truth. After all, at the end of the day, humans are tribal animals.

How many problems can we solve if we understand basic human emotions and accept that some of the intoxicating ones come at the cost of our precious dignity?

Imagine you have a favourite singer who you are dying to meet. Finally you manage a ticket to their concert. That singer asks his security guards to kick you out of his concert because your presence is somehow unsettling to him. You are being insulted and dragged out. Would you yell at that singer:“No matter what you do to my dignity, I shall keep coming back; no matter the number of times you kick me out”?

This unwanted love of yours is selfish and undignified and nothing more.

Now picture this: Each time you are kicked out, there is this person waiting outside for you, pleading you to let him sing the same songs for you. If you do not happen to love his voice, are you being unfair to him by rejecting his little concerts? Why would you entertain something you do not find pleasing to your taste?

The Dreamer says to Nastenka:“But I'll make you laugh, when I tell you that several times I have thought of striking up a conversation just like that, without ceremony, with some aristocratic lady on the street, when she is alone . . . to speak . . . respectfully . . . to say that I am perishing all alone”.

The same Dreamer tells 17 year old Nastenka on the second white night:“What is he [speaking about himself in the third person] looking at like that? At that respectable-looking gentleman who bowed so picturesquely to the lady riding past him in a glittering carriage drawn by those frisky horses? No, Nastenka, what does he care now about such trifles?”

Hypocritical?

“If Yahya is on his deathbed, still thinking about me, his unrequited love, thinking that his obsessive love for me will be his ultimate redemption while beholding in front of his eyes an end to everything, leaving behind a mortal world where he could have done better, leaving behind a family who knew he wasted himself, then let Yahya and others like him keep dreaming for the rest of their lives about a person who didn't love them back,” I was telling a friend.

The Dreamer tells Nastenka:“I would love you so, I would love you so, that even if you still loved him and continued to love this person whom I don't know, you still would not find my love to be a burden to you in any way. You would only feel, you would only sense at every moment that next to you beats a grateful, grateful heart.”

Why?

“Is this possible?” I asked my friend.

“Yes,” he replied, maintaining his loyalty to Dreamer.

“So that means you will love your wife unconditionally even if she is not over her ex-boyfriend, even after you give her your best, after she was the one to choose you?”

My friend paused.“That depends.”

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