Those conversations between him and his girlfriend were not simple. Love can bring two ideologically different people together, break them apart, make them hold hands and walk for a mile , then make them walk on their own track for a mile. While, at times it feels like two freedom loving birds put inside a same cage in the name of love, it actually means two birds decided to fly together aiming for sky connected through the beautiful invisible thread called love. It’s smartness one moment and completely absurd foolishness another moment. It was one such conversation on a foggy morning after a long Friday night.
“Why do we live?” she asked.
He looked at her, lighting his sixth finger.
“People use us. They betray us. They cheat us. We trust them, and they laugh at us for trusting them. We’re not smart. We’re fools.”
He said nothing.
“So tell me,” she continued. “After being a fool all your life, why do you still want to live like one? Why can’t we become smarter? Why can’t we learn how this world works and beat it at its own game?”
He smiled faintly.
“You lost friends,” she said. “You were used by people you loved. You trusted people who betrayed you. What exactly are you holding on to?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know how to win the world.”
“Then why do you keep going?”
He thought for a while.
“Every morning, when I step outside my house, there’s a street dog waiting somewhere nearby.
“When he sees me, he runs towards me. He comes between my legs, rubs himself against me, and then looks up at me as though seeing me is the best thing that happened to his morning.”
He smiled.
“Maybe I am a fool. Maybe I’ll always be one.
“But there is still love in this world that doesn’t know how to use me.
“I think this fool lives for those little loves.”
She stared at him.
“That is poetic absurdity.”
“Probably.”
“Does that dog put food on your table?”
“No.”
“Does that love put money in your bank account?”
“No.”
“Does it buy you a good house?”
“No.”
“A good car?”
“No.”
“Does it give you security?”
“No.”
“Then what exactly have you won?”
He looked into the vast sky above them. The stars seemed indifferent to both of them.
“Nothing,” he said.
She laughed.
“At least you admit it.”
“Yes.”
“So by every reasonable measure, you haven’t succeeded.”
“Perhaps.”
“You lost friends. You lost admiration. You lost people. You lost the comfort of being considered clever. And instead of learning from it, you stand here talking about a street dog.”
“Yes.”
“You hide behind things that cannot be measured. Love. Happiness. Flowers. Stars. Conveniently, you choose things that cannot be measured because by everything that can be measured, you have lost.”
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he nodded.
“Maybe you’re right.”
She hadn’t expected that.
“By the measurements of the world,” he continued, “of course, I have terribly failed.”
“But I spent half my life believing life was a transaction.
“If I was good, people would be good to me.
“If I worked hard, the world would reward me.
“If I loved someone, they would love me.
“I was wrong.”
“So you learned.”
“No,” he said.
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“I still love.”
She laughed softly.
“Then you really are an idiot.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re proud of that?”
“No. Pride would ruin it.”
He looked at his empty hands.
“I have simply begun to wonder whether a man who owns very little but can still love without calculating has really lost more than a man who owns everything and has to calculate every love.”
She shook her head.
“You make failure sound beautiful.”
“No. Failure hurts.”
“Then stop romanticising it.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
She leaned towards him.
“Do you know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re useless.”
He looked up at her.
“Useless?”
“Yes. Useless to the world.”
He seemed more curious than offended.
“What does it mean to be useful?”
“To contribute. To build something. To provide something. To matter to someone.”
“Why must everything that exists in this world be useful?”
“Because otherwise, what is its purpose?”
His eyes moved towards a small flower growing beside them.
“That flower,” he said. “Is it useful?”
“Of course. Someone can enjoy it.”
“But it didn’t bloom for them.”
She paused.
“We cut it and put it in our homes,” he continued. “We give it to someone we love. We make perfume from it. We photograph it. We decorate our weddings with it. We call all of that its usefulness.”
He touched one of its petals.
“But those are our purposes for the flower. Not the flower’s purpose for itself.”
She looked unconvinced.
He pointed towards the sky.
“And the sun?”
“What about it?”
“Is it useful?”
“Obviously. Without it, almost nothing here survives.”
“Exactly. Truth as the most useful thing we know.”
He looked upward.
“And yet the sun has no idea that we exist.”
She frowned.
“So?”
“So perhaps usefulness is something the receiver invents.”
“Then what is the purpose of the flower?”
“Maybe there isn’t one.”
“That doesn’t frighten you?”
“It used to.”
“And now?”
He looked again at the flower.
“Now I wonder why blooming isn’t enough.”
She shook her head.
“People aren’t flowers.”
“I know.”
“We have responsibilities. Hunger. Children. Rent. Age. Illness. You cannot pay for life with metaphors.”
“No.”
“You need money.”
“Yes.”
“You need to work.”
“Yes.”
“You need to contribute.”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you arguing with me about?”
“I’m not against usefulness.”
“Then what?”
“I’m against the idea that my usefulness is the measure of my existence in this life.”
“What’s the difference?”
“One asks, ‘What can you give the world?’”
He paused.
“The other asks, ‘If one day you have nothing left to give, do you still deserve to be here?’”
She became quiet.
After a while, she said, “But existence cannot be enough. We have duties.”
“Yes.”
“And duty makes us useful.”
“Perhaps we have it backwards.”
“How?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t perform my duty because it makes me useful.”
“Then why perform it?”
“Because it is mine.”
She frowned.
“That means nothing.”
“A father cares for his child. Is it because society needs another productive human being?”
“No.”
“Is it because the child will repay him?”
“Of course not.”
“Does he calculate the return before holding his child?”
“No.”
“Then why does he do it?”
“Because he is the father.”
“Exactly.”
He looked back at the sky.
“Maybe that is duty.
“Not a transaction.
“Not an investment.
“Not even usefulness.”
“Then what is it?”
“Something life has placed in your hands.”
She remained silent.
“You do it when nobody applauds. You do it when nobody understands. Sometimes you do it knowing that the person receiving it may never return anything to you.”
She looked sharply at him.
“That sounds like another beautiful excuse for being exploited.”
He smiled.
“It can be.”
“So we are back where we started.”
“Not quite.”
“Why?”
“Because an idiot must eventually learn where his duty ends and another person’s greed begins.”
She almost smiled.
“So even the idiot needs boundaries?”
“Especially the idiot needs boundaries.”
“And what makes him continue after learning those boundaries?”
He became quiet.
“Love, I think.”
She sighed.
“Love again.”
“Yes.”
“The same love that got you into all this trouble?”
“Yes”
“Then what have you learned?”
“That love and surrender are not the same thing.”
She looked at him.
He continued.
“I can love someone and still walk away from them.
“I can forgive someone and still never trust them again.
“I can wish someone well without giving them another opportunity to hurt me.
“Love does not require me to become available for destruction.”
She studied his face.
“Then why perform your duty at all?”
“Not because someone will reward me.
“Not because somebody has to receive it.
“Not because the world asks for it.
“Not because it will make me productive.
“And not because doing it will make me successful.”
“Then why?”
“Because it is mine to do.”
“That sounds circular.”
“Maybe.”
“And what gives this duty any meaning?”
He placed his hand against his chest.
“The love I carry inside.”
She stared at him.
“I don’t want to care for someone because they deserve it. I don’t want to do my duty because the world will reward it. I don’t want to be good because goodness will make me successful.”
“Then why be good?”
He looked genuinely puzzled by the question.
“Because if there is love inside me, what else should I do with it?”
“And if the world gives you nothing back?”
He shrugged.
“The flower still blooms.”
“For whom?”
He smiled.
“For no one.”
A moment passed.
“It blooms because blooming is what was given to it to do.”
She looked at him for a long time.
Then something changed in her expression.
“So you know all this?”
“Yes.”
“You know people use you?”
“Yes.”
“You know some people mistake your kindness for weakness?”
“Yes.”
“You know they may take everything you give and leave?”
“Yes.”
“You know they may laugh at you afterwards?”
“Yes.”
“You know that people who understand the world better than you will sometimes take advantage of you?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“Then why?”
He said nothing.
“If you know the fire burns,” she asked, “why do you keep putting your hand into it?”
He smiled.
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“No. I am learning not to put my hand into the fire.”
“Then what are you saying?”
He looked directly at her.
“That I don’t have to become fire.”
She was silent.
“I can learn who lies to me without becoming suspicious of everyone.
“I can walk away from someone who uses me without learning to use others.
“I can become difficult to fool without becoming difficult to love.”
“But why hold on to any of it?”
“Because their betrayal is something they did.”
He paused.
“If I let their betrayal kill the love in me, that is something I did.”
She looked away.
For once, she had no immediate answer.
After a while she asked, “So this is your victory?”
“No.”
“No?”
“You keep asking me to win.”
“And you don’t want to?”
He looked again towards the enormous, indifferent sky.
“I want to live without needing someone else to lose.”
She shook her head.
“Idiot.”
“I know.”
“And you intend to remain one?”
He thought about it.
Then the familiar smile returned.
“Hopefully, a slightly wiser one.”
Somewhere down the street, the dog saw him.
Its tail began to wag.
He saw it and smiled.
She saw the smile.
For the first time that night, she didn’t ask him why.
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