White Rum or Water

Al-Eye, a friend of mine, (I call her Al-Eye because I think her eyes resemble almonds) told me how one day she accidentally drank white rum. She was thirsty. And when she saw a bottle on a table she drank from it expecting it to be water. It was actually white rum and since she had a bad cold that day she couldn't even sniff the difference to begin with. Only when she had taken some of the alcohol in, she realized something was wrong. She said she hated the taste. Later when I asked her to try the same white rum mixed with a soft drink, she thought it tasted better.

Allegorically speaking the same thing happened to me when I was a lot younger. My soul was thirsty and I ended up drinking love assuming it to be life. As I said I was young at that time and hence ignorance was my guiding angel. I chose love with steep expectations because, by the look of it, it resembled life.

Love, back then, seemed too harsh a drink for my emotional taste buds. And because I didn't find life in the love I drank, I started hating love. But when I grew up and drank the same love after allowing reality to dilute the element of expectation in it a little, it seemed not that bad after all. Something manageable it was. I realized our baseless expectations play a manipulative role in shaping up our perception of things we value. And thereby make us a prisoner of those perceptions forever. 

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