| Monday, September 29, 2008 |
| what is love? |
I read this on a friend's blog...
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"I've been searching for the meaning of love for a long, long time.
I understand the love between a mother and her child, between families, between owners and pets, but I've never truly understood the love between two different persons who come to meet at a certain stage of their lives.
Many people have tried explaining to me, but none of them have ever given me a satisfactory answer. Which also means probably no one knows the meaning of that kind of love too.
They say no matter what kind of glitches in the relationship, love can conquer all. But what is the meaning of that love? You care for someone and you take care of someone and.. then what? What is it that makes you love someone so much that you can use that love to conquer all the glitches?
What is love?
What is true love?"
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I found this really interesting.
When I was younger, I thought I knew: You meet someone, fall in love despite all your individual flaws and differences, you grow more in love as time passes and you weather storms together; somewhere along the way you get married, have children, and grow old and gray together. Communication, trust, and respect is important. So is humour, affection, and having good times together.
Now I no longer know. Maybe all that I've said above is still true, but nothing is as simple as it seems in theory.
I've seen people who get into, and stay into relationships for reasons other than love. The reasons are varied; some out of loneliness, some out of a sense of dependency on their partner, some out of convenience. Some for their children.
I've always believed that I should never be in a relationship if I'm not in love with my partner, and I still believe so. I say "I" because I believe that other people have their own views, or their own circumstances, and I should respect that. Who's to say what I would do if placed in the same situation?
In fact, sometimes when I hear and read of the trouble others go through in relationships: the mistrust, the self-doubt, the insecurity - I wonder if it's worth it. When the rush of first love (I don't mean literally your very first love, but when you first fall in love with someone) fades, what is left?
Another friend told me recently that he's not had a girlfriend for a really long time, but that he's used to being single, and would much rather stay this way (I think things have changed since then for him, but oh wells). I'm used to my way of life, with nobody controlling me and telling me what to do, nobody whose consent I need to seek before I want to do something, nobody I have to be accountable to. Except myself and my parents, and in lesser ways, my closest friends. The closer you get to someone else, the more their problems become your problems, the more their flaws irritate you. Seems like having a boyfriend or a husband is having your own problems multiplied by two.
Yet it seems that we were built with this innate desire to be close to others.
Am I being very pessimistic? No, I'm not being depressed or anything at the moment, just pensive, I suppose.
Getting to know a person is not something that can be accomplished in a few months, a year, or even years. Maybe it takes a lifetime to know someone, and even at the end of your natural life you'd still not know everything about the person you have been living with all this time. Very possibly, you'll never really know yourself, either, because you've not been tried and tested in every single situation available. There are a more than a million "what if's" in this world.
So how do you know that you've chosen right? How do you know that this is the person for you?
So hard to answer.
Even as I type, one of my closest friends has flown to the UK to spend six months with her boyfriend, whom she met online (!!!!!). I am really excited and happy for them; they're two of the nicest and most generous people I've met, and they deserve to be happy.
He once told me, "The ball is in her court now; if she doesn't want me then I will have no other woman."
My goodness, he made me soooooo jealous!
But then I got to thinking... how does he know he will never have another? At the heights of our passions, giddy with joy, we cannot contemplate the absence of that feeling. Even if we had previously lived a lifetime in that very absence.
Nevertheless, I hope that this visit of hers will be another leap forward for their relationship.
Maybe one just needs to take heart and have faith.
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On another note, I've been meaning to blog about many things, but just didn't find the time - always something else to do. And some things I'm not sure if I am comfortable with blogging about. I used to let it all out on here, just as I used to share many things with many friends. Somewhere along the way I decided that for some things, it's best to talk about them only with certain others.
In the past I posted my blog address everywhere, but I've not shared my blog address with many new friends for a long, long time. My too-transparent archives are the real reason. They're kind of embarrassing, even. I'm not really keen to let new people see the gong dai (this means very blur), somewhat overenthusiastic, hanging-out-all-over-the-place seventeen year old kid I was. Many things have changed in my life; I am one of the biggest things. Sometimes I think I'm wiser and more mature. At other times I feel like I've lost a big chunk of my naivete and innocence and wish I could face the world with the same abandonment again. 初生之犊不怕虎。As the Chinese saying goes, the young bulls (I think?) do not fear the tiger.
(This leads me to ponder if people really change or they just develop along the same path; ie. they grow more into themselves....have circumstances changed me, or have I simply discovered more of myself in them? Arrrrgh I think too much!)
But I don't want to delete this blog and start a new one either. Not sure why; maybe I'm just lazy. Maybe I'm attached to this blog despite its embarrassing archives. Don't want to make this a private blog that people have to sign in to read. Anyway, not like a lot of people read my blog also lor.
Pffff. I digress again! |
posted by esther @ 8:29 PM  |
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| 4 Comments: |
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I think blogs should be kept, as a memento for your journey in life. Doesn't it feel good to read that the past entries and see how u've evolved? The only bad thing is that it's online and troublesome to print it in hardcopy.
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This is a great post..
I was thinking about this just yest night too
I think as we grow up our needs change, so its hard to know what kind of partner u need
But atm i'm like, fine, no worries, there's Jesus, He'll know and help
The more we grow up, the more we find relationships are not easy, things are not so black and white, and sometimes its hard to know whats the right thing to do
I think after so much, its a bit tempting to be a hermit.. u think so? Lol just kidding
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lucille: lol, i think i have enough rubbish in hardcopy...so it's fine that everything is online. 5 years of posts...i can barely imagine how many pages that would be!
liz: haha hermit! yeah, there is never any black and white in this world it seems...especially in the times we live in now.
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I think blogs should be kept, as a memento for your journey in life. Doesn't it feel good to read that the past entries and see how u've evolved? The only bad thing is that it's online and troublesome to print it in hardcopy.