L O V E

Our very lives are a testament to the fact that reincarnation cannot be contested. As many Eastern philosophers have suggested for centuries, reincarnation refers to the traditional rebirth that occurs after death — but beyond a mere theory about the afterlife, it encompasses the transformations that occur indefinitely throughout the course of our individual lives. Every moment that we are alive, we are exposed to new and unfamiliar situations that force us to reckon with the fragility of our identities. We are compelled to change — to reconstruct ourselves — in the pursuit of personal growth. Reincarnation therefore does not only consider the rebirth following physical decay, but the changes we choose to undergo every second that we are alive. It is a timeless feature of the human condition: that we are not static, but dynamic bodies forced to reckon with our ever-changing psychology. This is a frustrating reality, of course, and it certainly poses a threat to some of the most pervasive beliefs we hold, such as that of unconditional love. 

From Cinderella and Prince Charming to the love songs we dreamily indulge in, we consume the idea that true love is eternal once it is found. We do everything we can to find “the one.” We endure bad dates and scavenge Tinder and Bumble for hours on end, leaving the more intriguing questions about our emotions and sexualities to the fringes of media. This is compounded by the glamorization of romance in social media, the urgency to escape social isolation and our desperation to lead a meaningful life. But is it not also complicated by the fact that our fluid identities condemn us to a reality in which no one can truly understand us infinitely? Even the deepest of human understanding carries an inevitable undertone of fleetingness. And it is this contradiction between our changing selves and the permanent nature of unconditional love that leads me to question if the words “I love you” carry a truth beyond the moments they are uttered. After all, people change. They are cruel just as much as they are kind, and they are certainly prone to vices. So maybe love as we understand it is nothing more than a collective social hallucination, one that exploits our desire for permanence in the face of this endlessly changing world and our even more changing identities.

And maybe it is time to consider that we fall in love not with people, but with moments: a moment in which our lover is bold, a moment in which they excite us and a moment in which they exude kindness, compassion or any other quality we may deem worthy of love. And maybe love is not meant to linger infinitely but to be rekindled over and over again by meaningful gestures. And maybe there is nothing wrong with this. After all, it is what makes commitment so exciting: the idea that a person is not a territory to be conquered, but an evolving entity that you must endlessly aspire to win over the affection of. That is the truest declaration of love, not the marriages that constitute a $78 billon wedding services industry in the United States and almost 50% of which end in divorce, but the gestures we take on every day in the pursuit of true love.

What exactly am I suggesting then, with my seemingly cynical musings? Am I claiming that we break down the institution of marriage and enter a polyamorous society where it is forbidden to commit to one individual? Of course not. All I am saying is that maybe we got it wrong the first time around. Maybe some of us are lucky enough to find our one true love, but some of us aren’t. Maybe we were made to be freer when it came to love. Like Tomas in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, who claimed that his romantic affection for one woman did not diminish the love he felt for another, maybe we were never meant to rely on one person to satisfy the many existential needs we could not fulfill ourselves. Tomas is certainly not an example to lead by given his womanizing tendencies, but maybe he is right that our lovers are not tokens to be won over and selfishly exploited. They are to be liberated from our desperation for exclusivity. And if they fall out of love with us, they ought to not be condemned for it. 

The beauty of human connection is in its power to paint our lives with meaning. Maybe our current conception of love restricts us. And maybe commitment was never meant to be a form of certainty, but only a greater gamble that at its core is equivalent to saying: “I understand that we have no idea who we are going to become in the next week, let alone the next day, and I will fight for your love every moment that you are reborn, over and over again,” to discarding the idea that your partner should not change for the knowledge that they will, and hopefully for the better. To grow together: That is what it means to honor another in the face of our impermanence. That is the ardor with which we should all aspire to love.

Who We Want To Be?

Note: The following post is not going to be the easy one. These are the realizations after months of meditation. It could change the way you look at life, if only you could grasp the sheer magnitude of it. 

First of all, let’s understand that humans are nothing more than one of thousands of different species on this planet. We, like birds or fish or dogs, live here for a period of time and then pass away. But unlike all other species, we are distinct in one thing: We contemplate our reason for being and deduce that there must be reason behind it. Think about it: Does a monkey ever ask, “Why am I here?” Does a whale ask “What is my purpose?” Does a goat think “Have I succeeded, am I happy?”

NO! No other species dwell on such things. They live their lives moment to moment. They do not plan their meals, they do not set their clocks and create their schedules, overbooking their time, so that they are constantly rushed. Only humans do these things. But why?

It is because humans and humans alone are intelligent enough to believe that there must be more. There must be reason for this. There must be a purpose.

And that’s where we are wrong. Now here’s a strong statement that is true: Everything about you, your sense of humor, your intelligence, your creativity, your compassion, your motivation; all of what makes you YOU, will be forgotten within two generations of your death. Your children will remember your love, and maybe your grandchildren but after them, you will only be a picture on a wall or a name in the annals of history. But what makes you who you are, distinct and unique, will be forgotten forever. Just like all other species. Sad.

Think about the most famous people you can. Alexander the Great, Jesus, Hitler, Gandhi… What were they like? Were they rude? Were they fun to hang out with? Were they happy or depressed? Nobody today really knows. They only live on in name and only because they were hugely popular – either famous or infamous. Nearly every single human who has lived and died is forgotten forever and you will most likely be one of them. That’s a fact!

So what’s our purpose? So many people want to know “What is my purpose in life?” The truth is, your purpose is merely to procreate to ensure the survival of the human species into the future, in the same way all other species procreate to ensure the survival of their species: To ensure that their genetic codes go on. Because if you don’t procreate, then all that remains of you will be lost with your death. And your life, as important as you’ve convinced yourself it was, was pointless.

The harsh reality is this, in the grand scheme of things, most of our contributions are totally meaningless. Do you think that in 1000 years someone will talk about that App you wrote? Or that excel spreadsheet you filled out? Or that business you ran? Will your name even be remembered? In most cases it will not be and we will disappear from all of history and be completely forgotten like so many before us.

So what’s the point then? Why even go on?

The point is this. You are here for a very short period of time and the fact that you are here is an invaluable gift.

So if there is stuff that’s hurting you; a bad job, a bad relationship, debt, stress… walk away from it. Don’t let things destroy this precious gift. And don’t buy into the lie that sitting behind a computer for 8 hours a day for a paycheck is going to fulfill you. It won’t. That’s a system built on lies. If there is something you want to do then do it before it is too late. Do it now!

Life will fly by and before you know it, you will be at the end of it. Don’t get to the end saying “I wish I had done this or that. I wish I had seen this. I wish…..

Do it when you can! Before it’s too late. Take risks. Because life is a gift that can be taken from you at any moment. Treasure it and enjoy it!

Keep spreading love <3

We've been here before

Far less than we are inclined to think, we are no strangers to suffering. As species, we know well how to be agonized- but, as media organisations deftly like to keep hidden, we know even better how to endure.

We’ve been here before when, in the 27th century BC, the Nile failed to flood for seven successive years and caused one of the first and largest famines in Egyptian history. Hieroglyphs record that the national calamity was resolved only when Pharaoh Djoser ordered the construction of a giant temple to appease the temperamental and vain Nile river god, Khnum: the waters rose again the following year.



We’ve been here before when, on 13 December 115 AD, a devastating earthquake hit the ancient city of Antioch, destroying three-quarters of its buildings and killing half of its 500,000 inhabitants in minutes. Reconstruction work continued for a decade.

We’ve been here before when a devastating tsunami shored at Alexandria on 21 July 365. 50,000 people were killed in the busy port city and its surroundings. The city’s Royal Quarter disappeared permanently underwater only to be rediscovered by a chance dig for a cable in 1995.

We’ve been here before when the first global bubonic plague pandemic began raging in Constantinople in 542, having entered via the busy trade routes from Asia. Known as the plague of Justinian, it continued to infect the Mediterranean world for another 225 years, disappearing only in 750 after killing some 50 million people.

We’ve been here before when, in 1346, the ‘Black Death’ arrived in Europe from the Russian steppes and killed a quarter of the continent’s population – an estimated 25 million people.



We’ve been here before when in 1519 Hernán Cortés landed on the shores of what is now Mexico and what was then the Aztec Empire bringing in his saliva the smallpox virus, which in the next hundred years killed ninety-five percent of the population of central and South America.

We’ve been here before when, on 23 January 1556, one of the deadliest earthquakes ever recorded in history occurred in the densely populated province of Shaanxi, China. Building collapses and mudslides killed an estimated 830,000 people.

We’ve been here before when the largest volcanic eruption in human history occurred at Mount Tambora, Indonesia in April 1815, killing 71,000 people and creating an ash cloud that reduced global temperatures by 0.4ºC, leading to major food shortages, epidemics and civil unrest around the world for the following three years.

We’ve been here before when monsoon failures in 1837 and 1838 led to famine in the north-western Indian provinces of Punjab and Rajasthan, killing 800,000 people. The economic and social disruption, and the cholera that came with it, live on in Indian memory to this day.

We’ve been here before when a third global bubonic plague pandemic broke out in 1894. The crisis lasted on and off for twenty years, its global spread accelerated by steam travel and the scale of imperial trade networks. Worldwide, 15 million died; India was by far the worst hit, with 12 million deaths.

We’ve been here before when, in 1896–8, over 95 per cent of Southern Africa’s cattle herds were wiped out by a devastating panzootic of rinderpest. Coinciding with a severe drought and crop failures, this resulted in unprecedented famine in the Northern Transvaal. Desperate, people ate roots, caterpillars and old animal hides; many resorted to drowning their children.


We’ve been here before when, in 1918–19, the influenza pandemic known as the ‘Spanish Flu’ killed over 50 million people, far eclipsing the deaths of the First World War, a mere 13 million.

We’re here now, we will be here again. None of this is to diminish for even a moment the individual immense sufferings of our own times. It is just to add – as the media always fail to mention – that there will  be a tomorrow.