About Trying to Love The Unseen

Somehow, at some point of our life we had at least once dreamed of marrying someone whose existence is nowhere near us, or even nowhere in the world. I used to collect a lot of crushes when I was a kid – I may be the type of kid that falls in love easily with handsome boys in cartoons, especially with cool and calm demeanour. I found Detective Conan was ultimately attractive because he was dressed nicely and most importantly, specs. I also did find Ash from Pokémon attractive, and so did Harry from Harry Potter, Ueki from Law of Ueki, or even in video games such as Kingdom Hearts I found Sora is so cool. I have carried this feeling long before I knew this infatuation towards non-existent people is called parasocial interaction.

Looking back to my younger self and turning myself to the present-day me, I am wondering how I have been doing this and never in my life ever get tired of keeping this relationship one-sided. I used to love cartoon characters, but now I love idols who never know I exist. The concept is no different, except the latter one is way more acceptable as we idolize real people instead of 2D animation. It is funny to think that after all these times I have been trying to love them by creating fake scenarios in my head. Some people (including me) even wrote them down as different forms of creative pieces just to show that we do love them, but probably in the most nonconventional way. 

And once again, it is also funny to think that the only one who has been striving for this relationship is us. It was us in the first place who created the scene. It was us who decided to fall deeper into their pre-determined persona carefully crafted by the industry to entertain us. After all, it is us who choose to live this way. 

When I step into the stairs of getting older and enter the season where life suddenly works more like a trust fall game instead of flow chart, I have found myself getting closer to The Almighty. I tried to seek refuge from whatever makes me uneasy and all the causes of my falling tears. I thought getting closer to The Most Loving will have a smooth way just like His name suggests. But I may be wrong because after all these times, my way has been so rough. Getting close to Him feels like getting close to the sun; you are approaching the goodness but the process of getting into it almost smashes all of your bones. And I guess we also have been there before – at the stage where we suddenly question whether He is indeed The Most Loving.

Loving the unseen is hard. But I wouldn’t put the love towards cartoons and God side-to-side. They are not the same in terms of being, even if they’re both physically unreal. But here’s my questions: how could we maintain our love for something that is fictional, does not think, can’t provide us, can’t see us for years when God is also unseen for us humans, but He owns the power beyond our logic? He provides us from everywhere we never expect. He sees us when our lives go downhill. 

Why is it easier to have a one-sided relationship with a non-existent character than with The One who wants to make the relationship work out? 

It takes years for me to find the answer. But what I could get from thousands of hours pondering, is that we may have a strong tendency to immediately relate love with anything romantic. Movies and books feed us with what we believe now as something must-have in the pursuit of romance – holding hands, loving eyes, the act of kneeling down and saying I love you, the deep talking under the moon, just name it. And I think the reason for us linking love with those aspects of romance is because those behaviours spark an instant happiness, from which I believe it is rooted from the accumulation of being seen and feeling safe.

Being seen and feeling safe, I repeat. 

And this tricked us into thinking that the pure form of love is a romance between two people. Thus, yearning comes. The ‘when yah’ comes. It seems like our life is programmed to chase the illusion of happiness from having a romantic partner. However, the truth is, what we actually want to earn is being seen and feeling safe. To achieve this, we must first and always approach The Most Loving, the one and only, God.

I understand, this is not an easy job to do. I have been trying to see His love by endlessly getting to know Him every day. From some books that I read, what you see whenever your head turns into is the face of God. He is everywhere and He is nearer than we ever expected. He is there when nobody even stands by your side. It is what the book says. I could tell that it is God that has been making the relationship working out for me. He is the one who is making His way to us. I am not going to lie, but I still find it complicated to really feel His presence and His love language. I read the Qur'an, I try to get close by remembering His names, I pray after the adhan finishes, whatever attempts that can bring me closer to Him, I did. 

Sometimes, I wonder, what should I do to really make this relationship work? I understand that God is always there sitting with me. Love is a group project, isn’t it? But whenever I call and remember His name, it feels like I am in the individual project instead. As a human, we always want clarity – the voice that tells us what to do, the warm hug, the fingers that swipe our tears, many things. This is the kind of love that makes us yearn. But why is it more relaxing to think about Harry Potter hugging us than God who could soothe us through his words in the Qur’an?

But once again, this is not something that can be done overnight. Some people might be able to feel His love just as immediately as a thunderbolt. Some people, including me, take years to thoroughly understand and feel His love. I guess there’s no certain method and timeline for this. If I put this process into Bloom Taxonomy, I would probably still be stuck between level 1 or 2. It is difficult, but I will surely keep going. 

The older I get, the more I need to work on my real relationship with God and not with my fake scenarios about Kpop idols. I also need to stop treating God’s love just like how I wish to be loved romantically, because both of them are two different things. We may encounter difficulties to substitute one love for another, but one thing for sure: God's love covers everything. We may be love-deprived romantically, but as long as God’s presence remains within us, all types of love are no longer important. God is enough. I said this while still trying to believe it.