The History of Love

The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people's hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely.

During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less and expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious. When a hand was used to shield one's face when frightened by a loud noise something was being said, and when fingers were used to pick up what someone else had dropped something was being said; and even when the hands were at rest, that, too, was saying something. Naturally, there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one's lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now i realize I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heart-breaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen , because they didn't go around with the illusion that they understood perfectly the things other people said, they were used to interrupting each other to ask if they'd understood correctly. Sometimes these misunderstandings were even desirable, since they gave people a reason to say, Forgive me, I was only scratching my nose. Of course I know I've always been right to love you. Because of the frequency of these mistakes, over time the gesuture for asking forgiveness evolved into the simplest form. Just to open your palm as to say: Forgive me.

~ Nicole Krauss

Lust or Love?

Love is simply friendship, set on fire.

Lust is any intense desire or craving for self gratification.

To differentiate between the two, simple. Abstain from the forbidden fruit. Abstain from sex say for 3 months, no, longer, 6 months, to make sure. If after 6 months and you're still in 'love', then you must be in love.

Or, you could enjoy the forbidden fruit. Lust is like eating junk food, they are very very tasty and enjoyable no doubt, but they are hollowy hollow. That is, they don't fill you. They leave you craving for more and more. And the more you eat, the more you crave, much like drinking saltwater. The more you drink, the thirstier you become. Moral: When you're thirsty, don't drink saltwater. When you're horny, abstain from sex.

So, if you are still craving after 'eating', there you got it, it must be lust! Or, another explanation could be that you are just born lusty!

We all know what love is, but when we try to define it, words fail. Without definition, can it be real? But if it's not real, why are millions so lost without it? Is it merely a hallucination conjured up by our thirst for a meaning in life?

Everybody Hurts

(Please turn on your speaker if you haven't done so)

Thank God for music, Thank God for REM, Thank God for The Corrs. They make life so much more tolerable.

I close my eyes. I hear the gentle plucking of the guitar strings, the soothing repetitive harmony, much like the rhythmic breathing of the waves and the breeze.

The chords are simple, but they speak to the heart. It's slowly coaxing the hurting heart, much like a mom coaxing a crying baby. It whispers to you gently, lovingly. It tells you it is really ok to hurt, it tells you it is really ok to cry, and at some parts of the song, it simply cries along with you. "Don't be alone" it says, it puts its arm over your shoulder, and it simply feels with you.

And sometimes, that is really all we need...

When your day is long
And the night
The night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough of this life
Well hang on

Don't let yourself go
Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts
Sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along
(When your day is night alone)
Hold on, hold on
(If you feel like letting go)
Hold on
If you think you've had too much of this life
Well hang on

Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts

Don't throw your hand
Oh, no
Don't throw your hand
When you feel like you're alone
No, no, no, you're not alone

If you're on your own
In this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much
Of this life
To hang on

Well, everybody hurts
Sometimes, everybody cries
And everybody hurts
Sometimes

And everybody hurts
Sometimes

So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
(Everybody hurts
You are not alone)

The Meaning of Meaning

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes"

Romeo and Juliet


"Come and play with me,"
proposed the little prince, "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said,
"I am not tamed."

"AH please excuse me,"said the little prince.
But after some thought, he added:
"what does that mean---'tame'?"

""It is an act too often neglected,"
said the fox.
"It means to establish ties."

"To establish ties?"

"Just that," said the fox.
"to me, you are still nothing more than
a little boy who is just like
a hundred thousand other little boys.
And I have no need of you.
And you, on your part, have no need of me.
To you I am nothing more
than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But if you tame me, then we shall need each other.
To me, you will be unique in all the world.
To you, I shall be unique in all the world. . ."

"I am beginning to understand,"
said the little prince.

...

But he came back to his idea.
"My life is very monotonous," he said.
"I hunt chickens; men hunt me.
All chickens are just alike,
and all the men are just alike.
And in consequence, I am a little bored.
But if you tame me,
it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life.
I shall know the sound of a step that will be
different from all the others.
Other steps send me hurrying back
underneath the ground.
Yours will call me, like music out of my burrow.
And then look:
you see the grain-fields down yonder?
I do not eat bread.
Wheat is of no use to me.
The wheat fields have nothing to say to me.
And that is sad.
But you have hair that is the color of gold.
Think how wonderful that will be
when you have tamed me!
The grain, which is also golden,
will bring me back the thought of you.
And I shall love to listen
to the wind in the wheat. . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince,
for a long time.
"Please---tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied.
"But I have not much time.
I have friends to discover,
and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames,"
said the fox.
" Men have no more time to understand anything.
They buy things all ready made at the shops.
But there is no shop anywhere
where one can buy friendship,
and so men have no friends any more.
If you want a friend, tame me. . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?
asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox.
First you will sit down
at a little distance from me
-like that-in the grass.
I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye,
and you will say nothing.
Words are the source of misunderstandings.
But you will sit a little closer to me,
every day..."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back
at the same hour," said the fox.
"If for example, you came at four o'clock
in the afternoon,
then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy.
I shall feel happier and happier
as the hour advances.
At four o'clock,
I shall be worrying and jumping about.
I shall show you how happy I am!
But if you come at just any time,
I shall never know at what hour
my heart is ready to greet you. . .
One must observe the proper rites. . ."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected,"
said the fox.
"they are what make one day
different from other days,
one hour different from other hours.
There is a rite, for example, among my hunters.
Every Thursday they danse with the village girls.
So Thursday is a wonderful day for me!
I can take a walk as far as the vineyards.
But if the hunters danced at just any time,
every day would be like
every other day,
and I should never have any vacation at all."


So the little prince tamed the fox.
And when the hour of his departure drew near---

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince.
"I never wished you any sort of harm;
but you wanted me to tame you. . ."

"Yes that is so", said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!"
said the little prince.

"Yes that is so" said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox,
"because of the color of the wheat fields."
And then he added:
"go and look again at the roses.
You will understand now
that yours is unique in all the world.
Then come back to say goodbye to me,
and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away,
to look again at the roses.
"You are not at all like my rose," he said.
"As yet you are nothing.
No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one.
You are like my fox when I first knew him.
He was only a fox
like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But I have made a friend,
and now he is unique in all the world."
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on.
"One could not die for you.
To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think
that my rose looked just like you
--the rose that belongs to me.
But in herself alone she is more important
than all the hundreds of you
other roses: because it is she that I have watered;
because it is she
that I have put under the glass globe;
because it is for her
that I have killed the caterpillars
because it is she that I have listened to,
when she grumbled,
or boasted,
or even sometimes when she said nothing.
Because she is MY rose."


And he went back to meet the fox.
"Goodbye" he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox.
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye,"
the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose
that makes your rose so important.

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--
"said the little prince
so he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox.
"But you must not forget it.
You become responsible, forever,
for what you have tamed.
You are responsible for your rose. . ."

"I am responsible for my rose,"
the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember."

The Little Prince

Moving On...

"I've been living with a shadow overhead
I've been sleeping with a cloud above my bed
I've been lonely for so long
Trapped in the past, I just can't seem to move on"

Part of the lyrics from the song Way Back Into Love from the movie Music and Lyrics.

To those who are happily in love, you can skip this post for it's about sadness, it's about closure, it's about moving on, it's for those souls who are still lost in the past. But if you do break up someday, which of course I would never ever wish upon you I swear to God, you could return back to read this post.

Toughest things in life:

5) Being stuck in the company of a friend with bad breath.
4) Plucking the courage to talk to the god damn prettiest girl in the pub only to find out she is actually a he.
3) Having to hear yourself being christened another name when trying to defy the law of mathematics by making two become one.
2) Having to break up with someone.
1) The ultimate test of a man, or a woman, Moving On.

To love someone and not have this love reciprocated is one's worst nightmare, it is pain beyond pain, pain beyond description. Would we ever wish it on anybody? (Hmm.. Perhaps on our worst enemies) But I believe most people wouldn't. Then all the more we wouldn't wish it to befall on the very one whom we so deeply loved, the one who came closest to your meaning of perfect.

So if you truly love that someone, be glad that he/she was able to escape this horrible fate and that you were the one who saved him/her from it. Be glad that he/she was spared the torture of seeing you together happily with another person. Be glad that he/she needn't be crying every night, struggling to face life everyday, having to spend V day and Christmas Eve alone, if you truly love him/her, be glad for all these.

Now, I know not the meaning of true love, but I learned from the movies that it is something to do with wishing your beloved to be happy, always happy, even if he/she chooses not to be with you. I have no idea whether such thing exists in this world and if it does, I say there is still hope for the world.

The thing is, if your beloved chooses to be with another, then most probably it means he/she for this moment is happier with another. According to the movies' definition of true love, I suppose all we can do is wish him/her the best and move on. Be happy for she is happy and that is all that matters, at least that's what the movies all say.

So if you truly love him/her, let him/her go.

Now all we can do is listen to the song by the Corrs, 'Everybody hurts' and at the end of the song, when we finish hurting, we move on. It's not easy, in fact it's so god damn painful but no one ever said life was easy.

The Perfect Girl

Funny, I never thought about it before, I see no point in doing so. I believe sometimes we do not know what we want till we see the thing we want so I choose not to waste my thoughts on picturing what my dream girl would be like. Also, I believe that there is a finite number of thoughts you can conjure up in your mind and once you used up all these thoughts, the term “brain-dead” comes in, and that’s why some people fall into comas.

Charlotte: I just don't know what I'm supposed to be.
Bob: You'll figure that out. The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.

One of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite movies, Lost in Translation. If you people have been following my blog long enough, I’m sure you all know I’m addicted to movies. Perhaps it’s just my way of escaping reality. Anyway, all that translates to is:

• To be my girl to love, you have to love movies. I strongly believe what kind of movies you watch or choose not to watch says a lot about who you are. And I’ll often quote from some movie out of the blue. Therefore, to keep up with me, you’ll have to watch plenty and plenty of movies.

• You have to be blessed with the ability to laugh at the silliest things, the un-funniest of things because I do not have a good sense of humor but the worst thing about it is, I think I do. Therefore, the ability to laugh at all things is the most important survival tool you’ll need if you want my company. It’ll also fool me into thinking you are smart enough to understand me.

• You have to make me laugh. I have a pretty fat face and they say laughing makes your face slimmer and as some smart Alec said, “Beauty is the promise of happiness”, so make me laugh and you’ll be promising me happiness.

• You cannot be talkative, even if you are, try not to show it. Allow me moments of peace when I need to. There is a time for everything, talk only when it is time to.

• You have to be intellectual, but intellectual enough to know when not to be intellectual. Tough eh? That’s what I call intellectual. Because I do not have the highest self-esteem so if you are too smart, my sense of self will be threatened by you.

• You have to be cute. Hmm… perhaps around 161cm in height. Don’t worry, I’m around 176, so subtract 10 from that and that means girls that are 166 and below all have the privilege to wear high heels when we go on dates.

If you fulfill all the above criteria, please post your email under the comments for this post, I’ll email you my email so you can email me your photo and CV. All the best!

Fear of falling

If you’re in love, just fall in love, why think so much?!

I guess why we think so much is because falling in love means losing control, because falling in love means placing your happiness in another person’s hands, because falling in love means handing your heart out to another person and he/she has this power to crush it or to flower it with love.

And the fear is amplified nowadays because so many of us are just out there playing with this thing called love. Just because one can’t love oneself enough , he/she seeks this lack of love from others, seducing, flirting to make others fall in love with him/her. And so he/she thinks, “If there are so many other people like me, how bad can I be? I must be kinda good right?” And he/she sleeps better at night while his victims toss and turn, unable to get that fucking person outta their minds.

And that is why falling in love is so hard? Because after falling one too many times, we learn how to protect ourselves. We become more afraid of falling, of even trying. We shield ourselves, like a porcupine, keeping others at a distance.

(Talking to the players) Why do we have this need to hurt others so we can make ourselves feel better? That is so god damn selfish of us. The only excuse: I’m sure most of us didn’t do this consciously, it’s like we have this need to be liked and so we go about satisfying this basic need, much like if we’re hungry we eat to appease our hunger.

So people, if you’re hungry, please do not be a heartnivore and go heart-hunting, change your taste, be a vegetarian, find other sources or alternatives to appease this raging hunger in you so as to make the world a better place.

Alone = Incomplete

I used to think in the past that one should be happy, self-sufficient before one can be qualified to fall in love, but what if one is unhappy in the first place? So what? You try making yourself happy? Until one is happy then can one fall in love? But what if, what if you are unable to make yourself happy? Then what? You aren’t supposed to fall in love then?

"I've tried just making myself happy. She's tried making herself happy.
It doesn't work. You need other people to make you happy."

This was taken from the movie, About A Boy, another must watch film.

What if, what if we were programmed, what if it was hard-wired into our mind that the only way to be happy, is to be with others, and that there is no way one can ever be happy being an island. Well, not really...

"Every man is an island. And I stand by that.
But clearly, some men are part of island chains.
Below the surface of the ocean they're actually connected."

(Also from the movie)

And so, the point is, we all have this very basic need to connect and relate to others, we need other people to make us happy. So I take back my words about how one should be happy before one can fall in love.

Anyway, What the heck! If you’re in love, just fall in love, we'll never be completely ready for love anyway.

Do nice guys really finish last?

Imagine you are shopping, you see a big sales signboard ahead, "80% off!". You sprint to the shop with the speed of a cheetah and you find, on the shelves, a bunch of nice guys, piled with dust, screaming out to be taken. You skimmed through them, hoping to find one that would appeal to you. You look through once, you look through twice. Sad to say, you cannot find even a single reason to convince yourself to buy any of them.

Nice guys = Boring guys. I'm sorry but it's true, or so I think from a girl's point of view. But I'm not a woman so fear not nice guys, there is still hope.

But what actually is a nice guy?

Perhaps when girls say a guy is too nice, what they mean is that the guy is too gentlemanly, too chivaralous, too considerate, too ... (every good attritibute that you can list out). Bottomline: Too predictable.

Deep down, I believe we all like to be surprised. We want thrill, we love passion. We want the naked rawness. Being nice, being polite seems only a facade, because deep down within everyone of us boils a larvae of passion.

Therefore, being nice is simply being a hypocrite. Concealing your deep passions just to market yourself more likable, or so you think.

We actually like people just to be themselves. We actually wish to see a glimpse of their dark side. Because only when we see your dark side do we then believe you are normal, or being real to us. When someone is too nice, it also makes us feel bad about ourselves upon comparison and that is one reason why nice guys fail too. Because the whole point of two people getting together is to make each other feel better.

When people are just being themselves, then can we be comfortable with each other. I believe being nice is in fact a form of barrier to deeper human communications, what do you think?