The Forgetter and The Forgotten

photo from photography.nationalgeographic.com | words by tine magpayo

People remember and people forget. It hurts to remember when you want to forget; In the same way, it hurts to forget when you want to remember. 

Friendships come and friendships go. It is something that either grows or dies in the passing of time. The challenge of friendship is to be able to look at and take different directions but to once again be able to meet at the final destination. However, there are times  when friendship only goes as far as having the courage to let go. That courage does not usually come with the hope and enthusiasm to find each other again.


When we become separated with the people who matter most to us, we yearn for the feeling of having them around. And since circumstances would not always permit a close bond among friends, people will have a tendency to search for that feeling in the company of strangers-- strangers who are simply "friends waiting to happen." But the sad truth in life is that once we get attached to someone, we unconsciously get detached with someone else. The human heart, figuratively speaking, has some sort of carrying capacity. It cannot cater to everyone and most of the time, the person whom you find assurance to be with in the future is the one  you stick to. How can someone who has  stopped  being in your present give you security of togetherness in the future?

In every situation that required letting go, there would always  be the one who has come to forget and the one who has been forgotten. But why is it that the one has come to forget always appears as the "bad person?" Did he/she wanted the friendship to end? NO. As much as a person recalls and relives past moments in his/her life, memory has its limits. It can only go as far as remembering events but it cannot return the same old feeling and attachment  one used  to feel no matter how much one wants it back. Certainly,  it hurts to be forgotten.  Although sometimes, in forgetting, the one who  has come to forget hurts as much as the one who has been forgotten.

Learning and Unlearning Love

background photo from syntetyc.deviantart.com |  text by tine magpayo

          Some people believe that love is a decision, not an emotion. I beg to disagree. For me, love is both a decision and an emotion. To fully grasp what it means to learn and to unlearn love, it is important to focus on love as a feeling.

        We all  learn to love but we cannot learn to unlove. Learning is a process of absorbing; unlearning is a process of forgetting. To learn requires one to take something in; to unlearn requires one to take something out of one's system. To make the premise more simple, let's compare it with the idea of solving complex Math problems. Once you have learned how to solve, you cannot learn to not to be able to solve. Nonetheless you can unlearn to be a good Math problem solver if you don't use your skills for some time. I think same goes with love. If you stop practicing what you often did, you'll end up not having what you often had. If you want someone out of your life, you don't learn to unlove that person; you try to unlearn to love that person.

         Honestly, I'm not really sure of what I am saying or if I was able to express my ideas clearly. In the first place, love is too complex to be understood. But then again, if we shall look at love as an emotion,  then it is meant to felt, not to be understood. Ohhhhh how I love contrasts!!! :)