LOVE | ANIRUDH RAJAGOPALAN

Love

September 2022

"Love" explores its essence and how it is the bridge that connects the world together. We all have our own definitions of love. Love can be expressed in numerous forms.

Collaborative effort between Corey Truesdale, Shania Mastan & Anirudh Rajagopalan

Photographer: Corey Truesdale

Editor: Corey Truesdale

Model: Anirudh Rajagopalan

Director: Corey Truesdale & Anirudh Rajagopalan

Mentor: Shania Mastan

|1| Defining Love

Love has no single definition because of how it is expressed in so many different ways. There are so many narratives and unrealistic expectations of different types of love - romantic, friends, family, that we enter these relationships with ideas and beliefs that are not fully realistic and don't cement for life. Love is a universe of emotions and ideas so it has that many ways to be defined. It is up to us to choose how we define it and use it to lead our lives. And while we hop from definition to definition, it remains a source of energy throughout. We may choose a definition, but it never solidifies for life, because we learn more about ourselves and others every day, and so with new experiences and feelings, our definitions have to change as well to adapt.

|2| Void

We grow up really quickly, but that doesn't mean we feel all our years are complete. I've met a lot of good people at OSU and some nice people in North Carolina. But, as I navigated life after college and had my first job, I realized that I did meet a lot of good people who fill this certain void inside of me. Instagram posts can be cliche. They are really just one millisecond of someone's life and how many milliseconds does a person's entire life live? I think what I was looking for were people who could fill the void that I have. The void that is inside of me, if they are to fill it, it fills them too. And all those things in the world that I cannot do before, become possible with them. If they fill this void, it completes them too. And for a lifetime, it makes them really wonderful people.

|3| Inside

It can take a lot of philosophical approach to understand people from the inside. They always say, "Don't judge a book by its cover", and this applies really for everyone. There are so many people in the world, fresh out of college, trying to find some solace while broken from the inside. Many people leave their families behind and move abroad for further studies or a job and they face a fear daily that they have to return to an empty home, with no one there to ask them how their day was. There are so many people living like this in solitude. Meet such a person and you'll come to understand how they can hide these emotions from the outside selves they are.

|4| Acceptance

I'll admit that most of my younger years in school weren't always easy, but now that I'm older, I realize they all pointed more about how one is judged and accepted by a certain society. School was a competition, for mostly the wrong reasons. What was the point of competing so much for an award or recognition when one wasn't even accepted in basic forms by a lot of people? Why did we constantly put each other down when someone didn't get a great test score compared to others? There are so many other questions that I could ask here, but I remember such a society being a major factor in how hard it was to feel accepted in society. Sometimes I wonder if we had courses as far back as middle or intermediate school that emphasized the importance of accepting others as who they are instead of judging them for being different. Imagine how different our responses towards each other would have been if we were more aware earlier on. What if we were more aware of how all of us are always going to be different from each other? Not having many things in common shouldn't be viewed as a weakness, but rather as a strength. It just goes to show that kids need a society that doesn't work against them for being different.

|5| Never Take Things For Granted

We've heard this a lot of times especially during the pandemic, about not taking life for granted. We all know life will end but I think what a lot of people forget to remember is that you don't know what you have until it's gone. We never realize how valuable the things we are blessed with are until they are gone. Taking someone or something too lightly and failing to acknowledge the real value of it is very common when we are in this competitive world where the pressure is just endless. And with these venues like social media, they really amplify us and think that there is something more out there that we absolutely need to have. But what about being thankful for the things we do have? Living through even one day is a blessing. Being able to go to school and then work is a blessing. But how about valuing each other through the ups and downs? The treasure that we describe as friendship is so fragile and no one wants to lose it.