"Hi. Today, I will attempt to surpass 3400 words in one blog entry."
That's right. This is an attempt to create a blog entry that is longer than Amin's Megapost, scoring in at 3400 points. Time is now 1:50a.m... I'm gonna get started. :)
Recently, I've been asked why my views on the topic of love are what they are. I'm going to try to explain that in this blog entry. Let's hope I can get all of this down right- Thoughts and words don't usually connect for me (I'm more of a visual/music person, when it comes to expression. But I'll try my best!)
First off, for those of you who don't know yet, my views on love are such that the topic of "love", as we've come to understand it, do not exist. I went and google defined "love" just now, and my searched pulled up a billion and 2 different definitions for what love is. There is no exact definition of what love; if there is no concept to term, doesn't that in itself imply that love does not exist?
Fret not, I do actually have arguments to back up my opinion. It gets a bit weird, so just hang onto your hats (Oh jeez, old-timer expressions) and I’ll try to take you through it. I myself have trouble understanding it, really.
My first argument approaches the situation from a materialistic view. Love does not exist in the physical plane. You can’t see love, for it has no appearance. You can’t hear love, for it has no sound. Nor does it have a smell, nor a taste. And you certainly cannot embrace love with your own two hands. If you cannot be made aware of it with any of your senses, then how can you be sure that it exists?
One might argue that love does exist on a physical plane. Maybe you can’t see love itself, but you can see two people that are in love. You can listen to a love song. My counterargument is this; the two might claim to be in love, but what you are seeing is still just two people. The lyrics of the song may speak of love, but it is still just a song that you are hearing. It is not the sight nor sound of love which you perceive.
There’s another way of attempting to define love in a physical manner. By this, I am referring, of course, to sex, or any act related to it. (Yes, I said it, grow up.) I also have a theory to this; it takes us a bit off topic for a while but hey, I have 3000 more words to go. Might as well.
I’ve also lately been pondering about the relations between love and sex. Are they related? Or are they two completely separated things? The first argument to this is a simple one; to me, love does not exist. Sex, however, clearly does. Therefore, the two cannot be related. But, as I said, this is the simple way out. Anyone else with a different view on love would be able to negate that logic. So, I endeavoured to explain the non-existent relationship between the two, and drew up the following situation.
Bob and Mary have been going out for a month now. It is assumed that they’ve been together for this long because they love each other. Also because they love each other, they naturally decide to have sex. However, a few days later, Mary finds that Bob’s been cheating on her with her long-time best friend, Sue. (Stereotypical, I know, but keep in mind that this IS the hypothetical situation drawn up by a teenager.) Mary confronts both Bob and Sue. Bob and Mary break up, and Mary never talks to the two of them again.
By the end of this scene, it can be stated that Bob did not ever love Mary at all, and that it was infatuation that brought them together. The “love” seems to have appeared from nowhere, and disappeared just as suddenly back into that nowhere. By eliminating the negating states, one can come to the conclusion that love did not exist at all. However, the fact that Bob and Mary had sex remains unchanged, regardless of whether love was present or not. This proves that love and sex are, in fact, unrelated.
Relating this finding back to our main argument, we can see how the observance and recognition of sex cannot serve to prove the existence of love. That point now null and void, it becomes obvious that love does not exist on a physical plane at all.
Naturally, the following argument would be that love exists as an emotion. My perspective of this is that love does not even do that. Other emotions that exist are happiness, sadness and anger. At any point in time that these emotions occur, one can look back to that moment and assuredly state that they were happy, sad or angry at the time. Falling back to the hypothetical drama of Bob, Mary and Sue, it can be assumed that Bob and Mary were happy when they were going out, and that they were sad, angry or both when they broke up. However, can it be determined whether or not they were in love at any given moment of time? It is questionable. It could be said that they were either curious or infatuated with one another; this appears to be a common misinterpretation of emotions among most people, especially teenagers, who have not yet experienced enough to properly name and define most of the changing emotions within them.
It is easy to say when one is happy, sad or angry. Contrastingly, it is incredibly difficult and near impossible to judge when one is in love. The other emotions are definite, while love is not. Because love doesn’t fit the description of an emotion, nor follow the patterns that emotions do, it can be assumed that love does not exist on an emotional plane either.
At this time, it is 2:36a.m., and I am forced to remember, by my aching head, that I am, in fact, but a teenager and that I require something commonly referred to as sleep (Haha!) And so, I shall be taking a short, few-hours-long cat nap. This window shall remain open, and this blog entry will be continued upon my waking.
J
It is now 1:38p.m. of the next day. No, I haven’t been asleep since I last wrote till now. I didn’t end up sleeping when I said that I would and, due to my ever-present internal biological alarm clock, I’ve been up for hours now. I just decided to laze about in bed for a while longer... Haha. Anyway, I’ll be continuing this blog throughout the day now (because I’m sure that I’ll often be pulled from writing it for some sort of strange other responsibility.)
Next, the idea of love can be approached based on the metaphysical “Universal Forms” concept, thought up by Plato. The idea of Universal Forms states that the “idea” of a “particular thing” exists in a place that is outside of human reach, a world accessible only through the workings of the human mind. In this mind-world, the perfect idea exists, in all of its idea-ness. The imperfect image of this perfect idea is what we perceive in the physical world.
An example of this would be a tree. When we close our eyes, we can imagine the perfect tree, in all its leafy, green, tree-ness in our human minds; A being in the complete essence of a tree. However, when we open our eyes and look out a window, it is not the image in our minds that is what meets our gaze. It is an imperfect being. The tree that exists could be scraggly, or have brown, wilted leaves. The branches could be irregularly spread, or of inconsistent length. In almost every criterion, the tree will fail to meet expectations. The tree seen in the real world is known as a “particular thing”- an imperfect copy of the original idea, the “universal form.”
One could argue that because there is the idea of love, its existence is henceforth proven. By using Plato’s theory of Universal Form, there is, in fact, love in the world, although its appearance is unfailingly flawed. Yet, how often have we looked back at times, times which we had past claimed we were in love, and named infatuation or obsession instead? Strangely, love is not what it appears- it’s something completely different!
But let’s backtrack a bit, and use an argument more relevant to Plato’s theory. In this world of Universal Forms, the image remains the same; a perfect circle will remain the same perfect circle, regardless of through whose mind the image is accessed. It is perfect in all its roundness. This cannot be said, however, for love. The idea of what love is changes from person to person. Furthermore, the idea of love can mean many things to a single person; love for a pet, love for a friend, love for a lover. This discontinuity in the consistency of the identity of love disproves the theory that it exists even in the world of the “Great Beyond.” And without the basic, perfect idea of love, how can its imperfect image be projected into the human world? It cannot.
I touched on this briefly in the previous paragraph- The term “love” seems to refer to several different things these days. It can refer to the emotions felt towards friends, lovers, pets, hobbies, or objects. Let’s go through all of these separately. After all, I still have over 1800 words to get through.
Allow me to work through the list backwards. Love for an object. How many times have we seen a child exclaim “I love my new toy!” only to see him or her ignore it a few days later? A child may receive a new toy as a gift on Christmas Day. It could be a toy that he (or she, of course) has seen everywhere the past few weeks- in stores, on commercials, in flyers, with friends. It could be a toy that this child has asked for many times, even thrown tantrums for. The second he unwraps his (her) gift, it’s like the world shines a light on him; he (or she) has received it at last, the object of his (slash her) attentions. She (or he, alternatively) may thank her (or his, respectively) parents, or whomever the giver of the gift was, and exclaim that she (slash he) loves the gift. Over time, however, it is unfailingly seen that the toy becomes forgotten as the child moves onto some new, improved toy to pine for.
In this scenario, it is not love that the child feels for the toy; it’s obsession. The child wants what he/she cannot have. Upon obtaining the item, the interest in it dwindles. What may remain can be explained as fondness of the toy, but it is never truly love.
Next, running backwards, on my list is love for a certain hobby. This one, I can vouch for personally. Anyone who knows me will tell you that there’s one thing about me, and I’m all about one thing. Anyone who can read can probably tell just by looking at the title of this blog. I’m a music addict. I grew up listening to music. I play and listen to music all the time. (It’s like I’ve got a music player embedded in my brain. Really. At any given time of day, just look at me, and I’ll be grooving to some sort of music.) I certainly do like it; I enjoy it. I am passionate about it. But where does the scale of “like” turn into “love”? This again falls back to my theory of love being undefined. While it is all that I work for these days, I wouldn’t say that I “love” music, simply because “love” is too much of an empty word.
The next three are linked.
Love for a pet.
Now, let me say this; As I’ve sat here for hours, writing this blog post, my dog, Oreo, has sat (well, he’s lying down, but psht) beside me the whole time. Granted, he probably just wants some of my cheese crackers (I did let him have some little bits- don’t worry, there’s nothing poisonous to dogs in them.) and he’s left a few times for water, food, and checking up on his brother, but he is an awesome companion. He is loyal, completely honest, and has the sweetest face a dog could have. I could probably spend the rest of this blog talking about him... (I’ll try and get to that at the end, maybe.) Obviously, it goes without being said; I am very fond of him. But do I love him? In the way that I would be expected to love a lover, no I do not. Therefore, this cannot be love... Can it?
The whole love for a friend thing confuses me. Walking down the halls at school, I often hear friends (usually girls, as expected) calling out that they “love” their friends, or that they “love” someone who obviously is not a lover to them. This confuses me. Do they really love their friend in the same way they would love a lover?
And obviously, love for a lover. Can be explained by infatuation, obsession, curiosity, et cetera.
These past three show how the same term is used to describe the emotions felt towards three living beings that play different roles in our lives. Does this mean that the emotions felt towards them are all the same? This cannot be possible seeing as they affect one’s life in different ways. So which is the correct scenario in which to use the word? The obvious choice, due to name, would be a lover but... That’s already been explained many times.
Here’s a scenario I was keeping separate from the rest because it introduces a new “type” of love, shall we say.
Family love.
My own father is always saying that a family member is like a limb. To lose a member of the family is akin to losing your own limb. Once lost, it cannot be grown back (although, I would like to point out that, with modern technology, it is possible to replace a lost limb.) Stressing the importance of family, it is then expected that I love all my family members unconditionally. It’s sort of like... “You may get to choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. Might as well get used to it and just love them, sucker!”
Why is it necessary to automatically love a family member just because you share the same blood and name? If a family member abuses you or mocks you, are you still expected to love them nonetheless? It blows my mind how blind this agreement is.
First off, there’s the link between a mother and her child. This bond can be and has been explained by a chemical shared between the mother and her child. How can this bond be called love? It was determined before the birth of the child. The mother does not get to know her child; what he likes, the sound of her voice, what makes her cry, what makes him fall asleep. How can this be called love? To me, it’s a link forged in the name of survival. A child needs his mother to survive. The mother provides protection, food, safety. It’s important that she does not wander off and abandon her child, which is why nature created this fake link, this fake love, using chemicals that our bodies recognize but our brains do not. I apologize, but this is not love.
Then, there’s the issue of abusive parents. Violence does not need to be involved for a relationship to be abusive. Parents could spoil a child by giving them anything they want without limit, deny them food, shelter, security and protection, and so on. Where is the love?
You might not get to decide who is in your family. But I feel like we should get a choice as to how we feel towards them. Someone once told me that what you feel can’t be helped, nor should you try to change it. Love is not what holds a family together. Chemicals and the lack of choice do. Once again, in this situation, love is nowhere to be found.
Love cannot exist because it cannot be defined. What is love? When is it present in our lives? What role does it play?
One cannot even be sure of love when it is around. Is it truly love which we feel? Or is it either obsession, infatuation, fondness, habitual, expectations, or any combination of the aforementioned?
Love seems to appear and disappear on a whim; from nowhere and back to nowhere.
When someone says “I love you,” they’re lying.
This is why love does not exist.
That being said and explained, please do keep in mind that this is just my opinion, and that this is my reasoning (haha, I typed that wrong the first time... “raisining.” I raisins you!) behind it. I have never tried to force my views on others, nor will I ever. I will, however, defend my views when questioned or attacked. I do stay open-minded though... Because everything in life changes. One day, something might happen to make me think differently about this.
I just have to wait.
J
So yeah, that was my extremely long explanation of why I do not believe in love. I don’t really want to go into details on the events that brought about this view... That would be a huge waste of time, ahaha. Of course, I do have about 500 more words to go... Alright, this should be a snap. I’ll just do what I always do and rant about something!
The only problem is... What do I rant about...
There’s always one of these moments in every day. Where I am just sitting around and realization that I’m just sitting around hits me. My mind scatters in a billion directions at this point. I’m busy wondering what I’m doing with my life, what I should be doing now, how I’m wasting my time, how it doesn’t really matter because this time has already been wasted.
Time is a tricky thing to me. My parents like to tell me that I’m just sitting around wasting it all. It’s at this point that I’d like to point out that they are continuing to waste more time by lecturing me on time that I will never get back anyways, but you know. That would upset them even further.
Time is the reason I have no regrets. There’s just no point regretting- Things done or not, you can’t change them. What matters is how you are dealing with them now, and what you are going to do next. Quoting one of my favourite characters, Edna from The Incredibles, “I never look to the past, darling- it distracts from the now.”
OH JEEZ what do I say now?! 300 more words to go. Okay. Um. I can do this. I totally got this. Lol.
That’s another thing you should know about me, I guess. I don’t panic. There are times when I will pretend to, either for the fun of it or because I actually should be panicking. I do know when I should be worried or stress... But I just don’t do it. It seems to be my body’s natural response in dealing with stress, really. Quite handy, if I do say so. It’s pretty awesome.
200 words left. Well, might as well. I have a friend who’s been telling me all day to write something about him in one of my blogs. So here goes! I’m going to write at least 100 words about Matt Wu.
Matt is currently 17. He goes to a high school that is different from mine. Despite that, we’re pretty tight. I think. I met him in elementary school... Grade 6, I think. He was the tall, asian guy with glasses. I remember him being athletic. And LOUD. And something like a bully, actually... but not quite. Haha, that’s right. I called you on the tough guy act, Matt. :P
Anyways, I used to think that Matt actually hated my guts. He never spoke to me and didn’t really seem to like being around me. As he himself put it, “I did everything short of pulling on your hair.” After grade 8 graduation, I didn’t see Matt much. I still saw him at badminton sometimes, in grade 9, but after that, not really. He certainly wasn’t someone I expected that I’d be close to. Ever.
There’s one event that I remember about Matt though. It was the last day of school in grade 8, and I was like... “Ack, to heck with it. Hey Matt, can I have a hug?” See, I figured I’d never see the guy again anyways, so he wouldn’t be able to beat me up after for it.
I never spoke to him about this until he mentioned it again the other day, but he TOTALLY blushed when I hugged him. Softie. :P
And yeah, we’ve recently begun talking again. If you’ve read my past blog entries, then you’d know how much I stress friends, so... Having made one is pretty cool, especially since it’s a guy I never thought I’d be friends with nor expected to see again.
Funny how life works, isn’t it?
goodbye
ttyl :)
P.S- You have to take up blogging again now, Matt. I expect at least 200 words about me. :P
Time is now 6:22p.m.
3650 words! Take that, Amin!
