Warning: The article has been written a long time back in a state of extremely pessimistic observation of the things around me. It does not necessarily reflect my rational most observation. Hence the title contains "an observer..." meaning the article is from the point of view of one of many observers.
How many times has it happened that you wake up in the morning and naively get ready for the day only to discover later that you are going to meet someone who will become a close friend of yours? It happens to many people many a times. The day all seems ordinary and humble but you get introduced to a person with whom you strike a chord. Friendship forms and it brings about a positive change in your life. For the first few days, every day seems like a special one with time spent in bonding with a new found friend and feeling the excitement of having found someone who resonates with your inner being.
And a couple of months or maybe years later, you wake up to find that excitement gone. That certain thrill you used to feel on meeting that person just disappears. That exuberant show of affection has been replaced with a blank and a blunt outward look. Those were the good old days when the new found joy could have disappeared easily and thus care was exercised to preserve it. So intense was the care taken to preserve this new found friendship that you show affection at every chance you get, you show immeasurable tolerance when needed and show flexibility that borders being comparable to a rubber.
This mind somehow feels no remorse when letting go of someone with whom you have spent only a couple of days. But the mind apparently has a problem abandoning someone who has been around for a very long time. But when the mind and the heart desire someone who has been around for a couple of days to be around for a very long time, efforts come out quite effortlessly. A passionate show of affection, care and concern. A strong exercise of self control to tolerate the fallacies of the person in front coming out of fear that a loss of temper for an occassional trivial reason should not destroy the long term prospects.
And a couple of years later, something seems to have changed. Like a tree that has now firm roots and hence is capable of tolerating some blows given to it, the friendship has become immune to mild friction. The participants have no hesitation in screaming out their views. They feel no need to show intense affection. They take liberties they would not have dare taken couple of years earlier. The careful precision and the watchful eye that scouted for the smallest of needs of the other seems no longer a necessity. Everything that had to be said has been said and it feels like nothing else can be said. Time is spent in looking at each other but no words flow.
Probably, the heart in its state of missing a lot many emotions so cherishable takes over the mind. Irrational actions become common. The point of focus shifts from the outside to the inside. The necessity of checking this shift is not felt. Why would it? The focus used to be outside for a purpose and the purpose has been achieved, the other person is not going to let you go in one snap just because the focus is off him or her! But when the focus which you could feel upon yourself is gone, it carves out a hollow in the heart. Now, we have two hollowed hearts instead of one. The first hollow emerged when it focussed on itself and the second hollow emerged when the focus could no longer be felt!
What can two hollow hearts do but to bleed? And so they bleed. The famous cycle of friendship is set in motion. From an initial excitement to neutrality and now has emerged the negative phase. A time of chaos and misunderstanding. A time when negative energy spreads engulfing all in a state of misery. The hollowed hearts get hollower and hollower. And finally comes a decisive time where the either the desire to eradicate the source of hollowness appears or the desire to fill the hollowness appears. When the former happens, relationships break. The two people part their ways perhaps never to see each other again. But when the latter happens, the two people are filled with the urge to fill the hollow and make their friendship full again. But the process is too slow. The hollowed hearts must first fill. Then they must rise. Why is this such a common story, to me is something quite amusing and amazing!