Watching Taiwanese period drama serials can be quite excruciating at times. Besides the fact that they are extreme tear-jerkers, the amount of romance and love they heaped onto the scripts are incredibly overwhelming.
公子: 从一个小小的烙印，你已经开路辟土，满满的占据了我整个人。
公子: 世界上还有很多很多好人，很多适合你的人。你到底知不知道？
姑娘: 情到深处无怨尤，我已经不需要任何人了。
公子: 不要在折磨我，考验我了。我不是圣人。我会经不起诱惑。如果我坏一点，自私一点， 你所付出的感情, 我会不顾一切，照单全收的。
姑娘: 那就请你坏一点，自私一点吧。
*Sigh*.
I cannot help feeling cynical. Were people really that passionate about love in the past? Every single confession, every single tear and every single word are laden with so much love - that seemed to be bleeding profusely from the depths of the heart.
Are humans capable of such extreme feelings - particularly love?
I wonder if modernization has robbed us of that capability to love like that. Has the pursuit of money, the emphasis on paper chase, the relentless climb up the corporate ladder made us forgot how it was like to love with wild abandonment?
爱得掏心肺腑，肝肠寸断。可能吗？
Maybe it was possible when we were younger and still harbour idealistic notions of love and romance.
Nowadays, I am just more practical.
I love to be cherished and pampered. I love to be romanced. I love to know that I am being missed and desired.
But anyone can do that. It's not rocket science. What is truly challenging is to keep the flame of love alive after all that lovey-dovey stuff. And lovey-dovey stuff to a practical woman like me - can only last that long.
Contrary to popular belief, I am not looking for a relationship. I lose faith in relationships very easily nowadays. The day I get attached is the day I wonder when the break up will be.
Marriage to me - is only a constituition. The contract "till death do us part" - can be readily void as any other business contracts. Just sign - and you are free to go.
I am looking for a kind of feeling - a kind of love which allows me to be myself. A kind of love that is sacrificially beautiful, and shared between two people who just wants the best for each other. A kind of love that refuses to subside even when two people are apart. A kind of love that builds each other up so much, one feels emotionally paralysed without the other.
That brings to mind a very poignant and one of my favourite lines from Tom Cruise's movie, "Jerry Maguire".
"You complete me."
This very line summarizes the kind of feeling I am looking for. It's easy to say - "I love you". "I miss you". "I want you". But how many people can tell a special someone, "You complete me"?
I haven't had that feeling for a long time.
I haven't found anyone who I want to hear it from.
I haven't found someone who I can say it to. Yet.
6 comments:
In His time, He makes all things beautiful.
Historically, love has been a secondary consideration to relationships.
In our modern age, modern societies, we place love high on our lists ... but do we know what love is? I don't think so. Love is often confused with lust (it may be raw, it may be refined).
Love is about caring, the whole kit and caboodle. It is about uniting and forging a singular life - two become one.
When I started dating my wife (my only girlfriend as well), I was clear to her from the outset that I was interested in something serious, that would, hopefully, end in marriage (crepy? too heavy? maybe if I had only known her for a few weeks, but we had been good friends for 9 months prior). I was not looking for fun. Much easier to curb emotional damge if I haven't gone in too deep. We married a year later.
I was looking for a friend I could turn into a relationship. I got lucky. Although, I must confess, that I was beginning to wonder if my approach was wrong (my female friends tried hard to convince me it was), if my criteria were too stringent.
Finding people to like or to be infatuated with is easy. Our evolutionary path has made this so (although, I suspect you are not a believer in evolution - correct me if I am wrong).
From an evolutionary point of view men and women differ in their approaches to relationships. For a male, he must try as frequently as he can, because each lost mating opportunity has a high cost for him.
For females, the desire is to have some stability, she requires some stability, if pregnant or with young, her survival, the survival of her offspring is reduced if she is alone.
Is this a cold way of looking at things? Yes.
We have a very thin veneer of civilization over our primitive selves (look at the exmaple of countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir (ok, ok, I know Kasmir is not a country) and how deeply the bortherly love runs there. Of look even closer to home, gangs, mafia, organized crime, unscrupulous business people).
No matter how much we want to believe that we are 'civilized', 'sophisticated', 'enlightened', the truth is that buried, no so deeply, lies the primitive savage.
"My evil self is at the door and I am powerless to stop it!" - Dr. Morbius, Forbidden Planet
However, despite that rather negative assessment of humanity, I still believe deep in my heart that there is goodness. I look and I search for it everyday.
Sorry, I just remembered a Mandarin proverb, something I once read and thought was quite poignant:
百世修来同船渡，千载修得共枕眠
(note, I rely on the translation, since Chinese is all Greek to me :)
"It takes hundreds of reincarnations to bring two persons to ride on the same boat; it takes a thousand eons to bring two persons to share the same pillow."
Sometimes it seems this is true. The irony is, I do not believe in reincarnation.
Thanks Richard for sharing your life with us and of course - that very poignant Mandarin saying. I must say it was one of the most touching comments I have ever read in a while.
I’m afraid I haven’t got any words of wisdom here. Right now all I can say is look out for yourself. Maybe just don’t think so much bout relationships n such, u got a great list of stuff u always wanted to do right next to you. Put you time n energy into making one of them come true….believe me, you’ll feel great after that.
Once u tick something off that list, the sense of accomplishment…That kinda feeling, ain’t no guy in the multiverse can give you. Ha
The time of the chinese saying was stated wrongly -- way too long. As a result, translation is also a bit off. The correct saying and translation should be: "It takes TEN YEARS to cultivate enough good (or bad depending on how you look at it) karma for one to be able to be taking the same boat with the person that one likes. And it takes one HUNDRED YEARS to cultivate for one to be able to lie on the same pillow with that person", the implication being that two people does not come together for no reason, but only after numerous years of interaction. It has to do with the Chinese philosophical concept of Yuan2 Fen4 -- conditions ("chemistry") which bring 2 person together or split them apart.
Post a Comment