Love to me has meant different things at different junctures of

The words of Randeep Hooda—“Love to me has meant different things at different junctures of my life. I’m not a hopeless romantic”—speak with the wisdom of one who has lived, one who has watched the seasons of the heart change as surely as the seasons of the earth. He acknowledges that love is not a single, unchanging flame but a shifting light, growing, fading, and taking new forms as time advances. To the young, love may be passion, fierce and consuming. To the weary, it may be solace and companionship. To the mature, it may be patience, acceptance, and enduring strength. Hooda’s words remind us that love is not one fixed ideal but a living, evolving force.

The origin of this truth lies in the nature of human experience itself. From the ancient poets of Greece to the sages of India, the wise have known that love is not static but transforms with age, circumstance, and trial. Plato in his dialogues spoke of love first as desire for beauty, then as longing for union with the divine. The Sanskrit scriptures describe love in many forms—kama as passion, prema as devotion, bhakti as spiritual surrender. Hooda’s words stand in this tradition: love is many-faced, and to understand it fully is to walk through life and let it teach you its lessons.

History provides us with countless examples. Think of Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, who as a young man loved with fervor, but who later, tempered by responsibility and loss, came to speak of love in terms of duty, compassion, and care for the whole of humanity. Or consider Rabindranath Tagore, whose poetry shifted across the course of his life: at times burning with passion for human love, at other times radiant with devotion to the eternal. In both cases, love changed shape, yet it remained at the center of their lives.

When Hooda declares that he is “not a hopeless romantic,” he is not scorning love, but rejecting the illusion that it must always conform to the ideals of fantasy. The hopeless romantic often clings to the notion that love is eternal rapture, unchanging joy, or perfect union. But real life demands a deeper vision. Love can be difficult. Love can wound. Love can fade and reappear in forms we did not expect. To recognize this is not cynicism—it is maturity. It is to honor love not as an unbroken dream, but as a force that grows with us, changes us, and teaches us humility.

The lesson here is luminous: we must allow love to evolve. Do not cling to the notion that what it meant in youth must be what it means forever. At one juncture, love may lift you into ecstasy. At another, it may test your endurance. At another still, it may become the quiet warmth of a steady companion. To resist these changes is to shackle love, but to accept them is to live in harmony with its nature.

Practically, this means opening the heart without demanding permanence in its forms. If you are young, do not mock the sweetness of passion. If you are older, do not scorn the gentleness of companionship. If love comes as sacrifice, accept it; if it comes as joy, embrace it. Do not demand that it remain one thing, for love itself is wiser than we are. It molds itself to the needs of the soul at each stage of life.

Thus, Hooda’s words become a teaching for generations: love is not a statue, frozen in marble, but a river, winding through the valleys and mountains of our existence. Its waters may be turbulent or calm, shallow or deep, but they always move, always reshape, always nourish. To love wisely is to accept its transformations.

And so let this truth be remembered: do not be a hopeless romantic, chained to an illusion. Be instead a hopeful realist, who knows that love changes yet remains essential. For in each of its forms—whether fierce, tender, or quiet—love carries within it the power to transform the human soul.