<\/p>\n
First, let\u2019s get this out of the way\u2014most of us love the idea of love the way we love the idea of six-pack abs: from a safe distance, with zero intention of doing the hard work. We swipe right on illusions, marry projections, and then act shocked when our \u201csoulmate\u201d turns out to be a snoring, opinionated, gloriously flawed human being. Welcome to the real Olympics\u2014where the only sport is seeing people as they actually are, not as you wish they\u2019d be. Spoiler: The gold medal is actual, grown-up love.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You think you\u2019re loving someone? Nah, you\u2019re loving your own mental Netflix series starring them as the hero\/heroine. David Brooks<\/em><\/span><\/a> nails it: \u201cWe do not see things as they are, we see things as we are\u201d.<\/span> Translation: Your love life is less \u2018reality show\u2019 and more \u2018hallucination with popcorn.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a global detour. Remember the Anarkali-Salim<\/em><\/span> saga? Prince falls for a dancer, empire loses its collective mind, tragedy ensues.<\/span> Was Salim in love with Anarkali, or with the idea of rebellion wrapped in a pretty package? Fast-forward to Indian boardrooms\u2014how many managers \u201clove\u201d their teams, but only as long as they agree with every word? The moment someone disagrees, it\u2019s \u201coff with their heads!\u201d\u2014Mughal court style<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Antoine de Saint-Exupery<\/em><\/span> said, \u201cLove does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0But try telling that to half the world\u2019s couples, who think love means staring at each other until someone blinks (or files for divorce). The French get it\u2014love is a partnership, not a staring contest. <\/em>The<\/span> French Kiss Of Reality<\/em> anyone?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Or look at Japan\u2019s<\/em><\/span> concept of Wabi-Sabi<\/em><\/span>\u2014finding beauty in imperfection. They don\u2019t demand flawless. They see the cracks and love them. Meanwhile, you\u2019re out here ghosting people because they don\u2019t fit your Pinterest-perfect fantasy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mythology beckons: Mirabai<\/span><\/em> didn\u2019t just love Krishna<\/em><\/span>; she saw him, warts, flute, and all. She wasn\u2019t in it for the palace perks or the Instagram likes. Her bhajans are a masterclass in loving beyond the surface.<\/span> If you\u2019re still loving people for their \u2018potential,\u2019 congratulations\u2014you\u2019re dating their LinkedIn profile, not the person. Fast forward to today\u2014your parents want an arranged match with a “fair, slim, homely” partner who ticks boxes like a grocery list. Where\u2019s the seeing<\/em><\/span>? Where\u2019s the awareness<\/em><\/span>?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Osho(Bhagwan Rajneesh)<\/em><\/span> does a classic pattern interrupt<\/em><\/span> as only he could. Osho, never one to sugarcoat, drops this bomb: \u201cYour so-called love is almost an illusion. The man of awareness has a different love arising in his heart which is not an illusion. Your so-called love is a bargain\u2026You use the other, he uses you. This is a kind of settlement, adjustment. You call it love\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0Ouch. If your love feels like a business deal, maybe it\u2019s time to renegotiate the contract.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Awareness<\/em><\/span> is the ultimate relationship hack<\/em><\/span> no one\u2019s using.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The ancient Greeks<\/em><\/span> had four words for love, but somehow we’ve managed to dumb it down to one oversimplified, Disney-fied concept<\/em><\/span> that’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let’s go back a bit in time with the poster boy of Indian idealism. Mahatma Gandhi’s marriage to Kasturba<\/em> <\/span>wasn’t the sanitized version they teach in schools. For the first 20 years, it was a disaster of epic proportions. Gandhi was controlling, jealous, and tried to “improve” his wife constantly. Only when he stopped trying to change her and started seeing her as she actually was \u2013 strong-willed, independent, and perfectly capable of her own moral choices \u2013 did their relationship transform into something genuine. The man who preached non-violence had to learn to stop waging war on his wife’s personality first.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Winston Churchill<\/em> <\/span>was an alcoholic, depressive, warmongering aristocrat with the social skills of a rabid badger. His wife Clementine<\/em><\/span> knew this from day one. She didn’t marry the myth \u2013 she married the man. Their 56-year marriage worked precisely because she never tried to turn him into someone else. She saw his darkness and chose to love the complete package, tantrums and all. Compare this to most modern relationships where people swipe right on potential, not reality.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here’s an awakening that we could all do with. Arranged marriages<\/em><\/span> in India have a lower divorce rate than love marriages. Why? Because arranged marriages often begin with realistic expectations<\/em><\/span>. When your aunt tells you, “He’s a good boy, but he snores like a freight train and has the fashion sense of a colorblind buffalo,” you’re starting with awareness, not illusion. Meanwhile, love marriages often begin with the delusion that your partner is perfect, leading to the inevitable crash when reality hits like a Mumbai local train during rush hour.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bollywood<\/span> <\/em>has convinced three generations of Indians that love means never having to say you’re incompatible. Shah Rukh Khan<\/em><\/span> running through mustard fields doesn’t prepare you for the reality of someone who leaves wet towels on the bed and thinks “5 more minutes” means 45. The real love story isn’t about finding someone perfect \u2013 it’s about finding someone whose particular brand of crazy complements your own insanity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Real awareness comes when people drop their masks.<\/em><\/span> If someone has never shown you their ugly-cry face or their 3 AM anxiety spiral, you don’t know them \u2013 you know their PR department.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite what Jerry Maguire<\/em> <\/span><\/a>told you, another person cannot and should not complete you. If you’re half a person looking for your other half, you’re going to create a whole mess, not a whole relationship. Your soulmate might be someone else’s nightmare roommate. And that’s perfectly fine. Compatibility isn’t universal \u2013 it’s personal<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Look at countries with the happiest relationships: Denmark, Finland, Sweden<\/span><\/em>. What do they have in common? Brutal honesty about expectations, realistic views of partnership, and the cultural permission to be imperfect humans rather than romantic ideals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meanwhile, countries obsessed with romantic perfection (looking at you, France<\/em><\/span> and India<\/em><\/span>) often have higher rates of relationship dissatisfaction despite all the poetry and Bollywood songs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When you truly see people as they are, your expectations become realistic, and suddenly everyone becomes more loveable. It’s like switching from expecting your local chai wallah to be Starbucks \u2013 once you adjust expectations, you can actually enjoy what’s in front of you. Thats the liberation of lower expectations<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let\u2019s be honest. We don\u2019t love people.<\/em><\/span> We love the edited version of them we\u2019ve Photoshopped in our heads. The Insta Story<\/em><\/span> version with bad lighting cropped out and unpleasant truths muted like a WhatsApp group full of relatives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Awareness isn\u2019t about becoming Zen.<\/em><\/span> It\u2019s about\u00a0becoming honest<\/em><\/span>. <\/p>\n When Naseeruddin Shah<\/em><\/span> admitted to hating Rajesh Khanna’s<\/em><\/span> acting and later owned<\/em>\u00a0the backlash, people woke up. Why? Because realness stings. Awareness isn\u2019t diplomatic<\/em><\/span>. It\u2019s disruptive. And sometimes, that\u2019s how respect is born.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Haruki Murakami.<\/span> <\/em><\/a>This guy writes characters so nakedly honest, they make you squirm. He doesn\u2019t give you heroes. He gives you humans\u2014with all their dusty flaws and dreamy contradictions. That\u2019s awareness dressed in literature.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When you truly see someone \u2013 their fears, their wounds, their weird quirks, and their magnificent strengths \u2013 and choose to love them anyway, you’re not just loving a person. You’re loving humanity itself. You’re saying, “I see your beautiful, broken, complex reality, and I choose to be here anyway.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That’s not just love. That’s revolution.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And in a world full of filters, fake news, and carefully curated social media lives, choosing to see reality might just be the most radical act of all.\u00a0 That is the final truth: that awareness is the ultimate act of love<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First, let\u2019s get this out of the way\u2014most of us love the idea of love the way we love the idea of six-pack abs: from a safe distance, with zero intention of doing the hard work. We swipe right on illusions, marry projections, and then act shocked when our \u201csoulmate\u201d turns out to be … Continue reading “The Awareness Conspiracy: Why You\u2019re Loving a Mirage”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2222,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221\/revisions\/2222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHonest enough to say: “Hey, this guy\u2019s got warts. And baggage. And an ego that could use its own seat on a flight. But he\u2019s\u00a0real.”<\/em><\/p>\n