The Best Thing in Life

By Aiko (for Life Line Magazine)

Have you ever asked yourself what the Best Thing in Life is? I hear even money cannot buy it. Some people actually commit suicide when they lose it. It amazingly takes away pain and brings everlasting joy to the beholder, Wow! But what is it? Is it magic, cruising the latest Lincoln Navigator on Kampala streets, having gold reserves in Nile Bank, political power, diamonds, hot sex or enough food? What is this thing and where can I get it?
A German super centenarian (over 110 years old) once confessed that the reason why he had lived long and stayed young plus healthy was neither Japanese green tea nor regular exercise and fish but ‘the love of a woman’. Isn’t it true that love turned water into wine, woke up Sleeping Beauty and built the fantastic Taj Mahal, one of the 7 Wonders of the world voted again in July 2007 after many years as a world wonder? If faith can move mountains, then love can move oceans.
Even the Christian Bible glorifies love in 1 Corinthians 13:13 as the Greatest Thing. He who does not love is nothing. “You can have a lot of money and still be poor when your relationships lack peace,” You need to have the perfect prosperity equilibrium preached to Ugandans at Namboole Stadium on Wednesday 13 June 2007. The American Bible teacher Dr. Creflo Dollar said that you should love the Word of GOD for “it has the power to make rich…”
But what is love? Isn’t it Celine Dion, Iryn Namubiru, Michael Bolton, Aaliyah, East African Bashment Crew and Paul Kafeero? Many define it as a feeling of affection towards an attraction. The Greeks, meanwhile, offer four explanations: Storge (General), Philia (Brotherly), Eros (Sexual) and Agape (Godly) but what exactly is it? Could it be the lonely hearts page in newspapers, a girlfriend on Nile Avenue, a Web Chat room or romancing a stranger by SMS? The Kenyan short film ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’, given a nod at the 2007 Amakula Film Festival in Kampala, actually ridicules SMS love. Two male friends became victims of this new service. Desperate for true love from females, they joined the network secretly but got paired to each other. Hoping to meet for the first time, they agreed to rendezvous in Mombasa. The two men were shocked to meet instead after each thought that their partner was female. Everybody wants true love even if they pretend not to.
However, sometimes true love is indeed hard to find evidenced by callers who discover heart breaking secrets about their cheating partners on Capital FM’s Late Date Show hosted by deejay Ronnie. Tony, a 2006 UCU graduate once wrote: “True love isn’t about falling in love; it’s about considering a slow and systematic trend of a growth process in love that will establish the relationship one has taken long to build.” Tony’s flowery in sight into relationships was really powerful because he had gone through several experiences.
For those who think money can buy true love for one night, it does not necessarily buy true love for a lifetime. There have been modern-day films about the greatest Spanish warrior of all time named Rodrigo (or Ruy) Díaz de Vivar such as El Cid (1961, starring Charlton Heston as the title character and Sophia Loren) and the animated El Cid: La Leyenda (2003). In the early 80s, there was an animated series called Ruy, el Pequeño Cid, portraying the fictional adventures of El Cid as a child. Modern audiences may know a romanticized story of the Cid from the 1961 film. He killed his lover’s father in self defence and she, in mourning her father, promised to ‘learn how to hate’ him. However, because the love she had earlier felt for the military champion was overwhelming true, by the end of the movie they had reunited and happily conceived two twin daughters together.
If you ever find a faithful friend or lover, cling to their affection because it is the greatest gift you can receive from a human being; nothing comes close to true love. Don’t you want to feel real love?