Expressions of Love: Inspirations

Love is not just a feeling or an emotion that can be stored up in hearts. My understanding of love is that it is the propelling force that makes one show utmost respect, utmost care to someone continually and unconditionally. Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to one's own. It fact, it becomes the priority over your own happiness. True love is consuming. “True love is like cancer that arises in the heart and permeates your soul until you lose yourself selflessly for the other”.

Now, however, open criticism is better than unexpressed love. Indeed love is full of action, but love has to be expressed and enjoyed. People often have a desperate need to hear from their significant ones that they are loved, that they are being cared for. People have become too busy these days. The best excuse for a workaholic husband is that they work because they love & care for the family. Well, true, but if you fail to express your love, you'll be failing in the most fundamental commitment of marriage.

As a part of Getting Trained For Marriage, I have enlisted some of my ideas for expressing love. I hope it will be an interesting read.

1. Words:

Words form the basis of our communication, especially when it's not face to face. In a face to face communication, the body language plays a major role. Words can be magical. Words can cast spells. Choicest words are but poor man's diamonds to express love. In the present busy world, we communicate a lot through short texts (SMS, Internet messaging, etc.). Whatever medium is used, words can stir up romance if a little care is taken to express love. Choose the right and sweetest of words and present them lovingly. If I happen to meet that special person, I would be sending a lot of love letters. The emotions that a hand written note can conjure up is not to be underestimated. Leaving sticky notes over common places serves as a means of short communication peppered with a lot of love.

"I've bought coffee and refilled the cookie jar, honey. 

I'd be thinking of you over coffee. 

Will be coming late from work." 

on the kitchen shelf is sure to relax and make your spouse's evening more beautiful.

 Written reminders of every day simple and beautiful moments maintained in a journal will be a great treasure to remind you of your glorious youthful days when you are old and frail.

Here are some of my own little notes!! 

Here are some I took from the internet!

2. Listen

It is in fact more important to listen than to talk. Listening is an act of love. Listen to understand and not to judge. Listening helps one to understand the perspective from his/her spouse's point of view. Arguments are healthy. What is unhealthy in an argument is when a spouse partially listens and fails to see the entire picture and gets his/her ego hurt. There is no place for any competition or superiority in marriage. Listen. Understand. Care.

3. Time Together

Spending time together is an act of love. Most spouses live in the same house living completely separate lives! Taking time off busy schedules every day and spending time together will renew the beautiful bond of marriage every single day. Scientifically speaking, it has many benefits. Touch is a very important sensation that releases a substance called oxytocin into the blood. It helps to form the feelings of a physical bonding. It also elevates the mood, decreases depressive feelings and makes a person feel good. Spending time together will take away the feelings of loneliness and foster a healthy body and mind. At times, a hug, holding of hands and a gentle caresses can work more wonders than the most powerful of medicines.

4. Share Every Work

I really don't completely agree with the 'divide n rule' policy when it comes to managing household chores. There is no reason why the kitchen should be the wife's department and the garage or the garden should be the husband's department. Instead, every work must be shared as much as possible. This will enable spending more time together. It also relieves the pressure of stress on each other as two heads are always better than one. The company of one will help the other in getting the work done more efficiently and make it more enjoyable.

5. Put a Smile on Your Spouse

Your spouse's smile. That's the whole indicator of a successful love story. I have written about it in a separate post already. Your spouse's smile is your priority!

6. The Courage

To propose love to someone and ask for his/her hand in marriage requires a lot of courage. And this courage is a sign of expression of love. For even though I write this, I am confused. Great relationships often start as good friendships. According to me love is but a long term commitment of respect, care and responsibility that only deepens friendships and does not destroy it. However, in the real world there are too many other things that can complicate this; a broken past, stubborn parents who vehemently oppose love marriages, etc. Often love is confused for lust in this corrupt world. That makes it a huge risk to propose love to someone with whom the relationship started budding as friendship. To find a person who shares most of the interests and thought patterns is already a difficulty. To take this risk and lose the person forever or miss the chance of a beautiful lifelong journey together is a tough decision that will haunt human minds forever. 

More to read on Synaptic Sparks on Love & Marriage:
The Ethics of Love
Love letters to the wind - Always By My Side
Can a Digital Rose be Romantic?

World Photographers Day

Today, August 19 is the World Photographers' Day. Photographers make the world even more beautiful by their creativity. You may be an amateur, hobbyist photographer or a serious professional. Whoever you are, you deserve to know that your creativity makes the world more beautiful, changes perspectives, puts a smile on people and so much more...

Here are a few inspiring quotes on Photography:

You don’t take a photograph, you make it. – Ansel Adams

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. – Ansel Adams

If your photos aren’t good enough, then you’re not close enough. – Robert Capa

It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter. – Alfred Eisenstaedt

I love the people I photograph. I mean, they’re my friends. I’ve never met most of them or I don’t know them at all, yet through my images I live with them. – Bruce Gilden

Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow. – Imogen Cunningham

In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality. – Alfred Stieglitz

Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase. – Percy W. Harris

I am not interested in rules or conventions. Photography is not a sport. — Bill Brandt

It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are. – Paul Caponigro

Of course it’s all luck. – Henri Cartier-Bresson

What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce. ― Karl Lagerfeld

A lot of photographers think that if they buy a better camera they’ll be able to take better photographs. A better camera won’t do a thing for you if you don’t have anything in your head or in your heart. – Arnold Newman

If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff. – Jim Richardson

It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were hardest to get. – Timothy Allen

Even though fixed in time, a photograph evokes as much feeling as that which comes from music or dance. Whatever the mode – from the snapshot to the decisive moment to multi-media montage – the intent and purpose of photography is to render in visual terms feelings and experiences that often elude the ability of words to describe. In any case, the eyes have it, and the imagination will always soar farther than was expected. – Ralph Gibson

The best images are the ones that retain their strength and impact over the years, regardless of the number of times they are viewed. — Anne Geddes

To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. – Elliott Erwitt

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
― Ansel Adams

“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
― Marc Riboud

Wish you all the fun!

Do follow me @ My Photography Page, Flickr

Read more on Synaptic Sparks: Top 10 reasons Why You should Marry a Photographer

Of Value? or Of Success?

“Try not to become a man of success rather try to become a man of value.” –Albert Einstein

Everyone wants to be successful. Very true.

But what is success? Whom do you consider successful ?

What "SUCCESS" means to you is largely determined by the society and the media's influence on you. You might feel that a person who owns a three bed-roomed mansion, a BMW car and all the other luxuries of life, earning 2 lakh/month as the most successful person. Or you might consider that a person who is popularized by the media and famous all around the globe as successful. A top rated-popstar. A CEO of a successful company. A top notch computer programmer. Whatever!

What about a high school chemistry teacher in a small town? - Are you kidding?
The society by large would consider that person as "middle class" or probably a little more than middle class if his salary is good or if he has good ancestral property.

Now let me introduce to you, Mr. Vishwakumar. To those who don't know about him, he's a Chemistry teacher in a private school (Petit Seminaire) in Pondicherry. He was my teacher.

He is a simple person. He teaches Chemistry at school. He also teaches Chemistry and Physics in the evenings at his house for very nominal fees. Now what is great about him???
Well, ask anyone! Anyone inside Petit Seminaire School, any past pupil of that school, any parent of the student who studied under him, any other teacher in the town of Pondicherry, or even many others living in Pondicherry. People will unanimously tell you that he is one of the best teachers. People respect him for who he is. His passion for teaching, his care for his students and the power of encouragement and motivation he has, his humility, his dedication makes him so popular and dear among his students.

Was he successful? - I don't know. It depends on what you consider successful. He does not own a Ferrari.
Was he of valve?  - YES !!!
How do I say so? He's a brilliant person. If he'd chosen to be (say) a computer programmer** (just an example), earned millions and lived his way, many would have been deprived of a wonderful teacher.

Now what do we learn here:
- Many people are not satisfied with their profession. They feel unsuccessful in this competitive world. (like a doctor working in a rural centre compared to a doctor working in a corporate hospital). How successful you are doesn't matter when compared how valuable you are.

-A man of value will live in the hearts of people even after his death. A successful person's money will be looted after his death. (I don't mean you shouldn't be successful. In fact, you should. But the priority you have decides your life principles)

To conclude: “Try not to become a man of success rather try to become a man of value.” –Albert Einstein

** I never say that a computer engineer can't be a man of value. It was just an example. You can be a man of value in whichever profession you are, whichever part of the world you live in...etc.

Cure someone ! Get cured !!

One disease which resolves when you try to cure someone else with the same disease. See the pics below.

When in company !

 At times of loneliness !

When nothings changes...

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat. 
Mother Teresa 

I'll be happy & less lonely if you share this or leave a comment below !