This is no playing Gabriel García Márquez but a pretension of the neo-literate (nay monomaniac) ‘elite’ understanding of the subject of love. Say romanticism if you like, there’s always a trap!

 

Very quickly, let’s together situate love in the time of war. The soldier and his wife! In the time of war, the soldier is expected to head for the front, leaving the home-front to his wife (or would you say ‘to her husband’ if the soldier in this case were a lady? Of course!)

 

For convenience, we should be content with the first possibility where the soldier is a man. Here, the soldier is expected to make for the front, leaving home. However, will ‘our’ soldier leave home if he is ‘truly’ in love with his wife? To die? Or to live….

His ultimate decision would eventually be anchored on whether or not he loves his wife (and how so), as well as what he will make of his life, going forward.

This is an analogy apt at explaining the life of man and the following are possible pictures. Two possibilities.

It’s either he leaves home for the front or he doesn’t. If he leaves, again there are two possibilities. At the front, he may fight valiantly and yet with an effort at self-preservation. This is in order to survive the war to be able to get back to his ‘loving’ wife as he ‘must have promised’ to do.

The other possibility is that the soldier fights recklessly in order to get killed, or simply die, at the war-front and never again have the opportunity to return home whole to…a wife, a nagging wife…an incompetent soulmate…better content with an incorrigibly moody and crazy woman.

So, if the war were to be the streets of life and you, my man…my friend are the soldier, what would be your decision?

Would you rather, at any time, be caught in bed lying beside (under, atop, outside or inside, as you may so wish) your wife, never venturing out? When the love is maddening, you better stay home. Don’t bother venturing out. Love may be enough, sometimes, for life to be complete. But remember; ‘no venture, no gain’.

If however, you would prefer to venture out, would you choose better to fight with reckless abandon, knowing it’s a sweeter experience to die a hero on the battle-front than to be the unsung victim (nay ‘die like a fowl’) of your wife’s homicide? I doubt that except of course if that wife is the devil’s incarnate. Prayers are needed!

The position, where respondents say is better to find oneself is where you make that simple yet pregnant (with every speech and calculated move) promise to your wife, “I will see you when I get back” before leaving for the front. At the front, you do everything possible to fulfill that promise. Self-preservation while striving for mastered excellence! Even in the face of obvious death, the thought of your wife should ordinarily spur you to life. (The last has to be one of the pretensions of the writer. Pardon him!)

So, having established that this writer is a novice on the issues of love and life, and as such needs another visit to the front and the home to learn more of the acts and skills. A bid to serve the audience right and make successful efforts at self-preservation.

Everyone needs to get back home to momma, you know.