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Love: what is it? 4
07.16.04 (6:38 pm)   [edit]
My previous post on love brought quite a few comments such as "love...is selfless" and "does she love you or does she just need you?"

I agree with both these comments. I have been trying to show what I believe is often mistaken for love. I do not believe clinging and manipulation are ever love. To me love must always be a positive force. While love may involve pain and suffering, an act of love always comes from a positive motivation. I am even open to the possibility that everything that is positive is love. Perhaps we can explore this in future posts.

I would like to share a quote from Master Cheng Yen, one of my favourite Buddhist teachers: "Love is not asking from others but is giving of yourself."
 
Desire to kill
07.13.04 (7:17 pm)   [edit]
Sometimes it is necessary to acknowledge and perhaps confront our shadow. During my time in Malaysia (coming up to six months) I have been robbed on two occasions. The first time was when I left my bag unattended in what I thought was a safe place. The second was a snatch theft.

My reaction to the snatch thieves was to try to catch them, which was in fact futile. Had I done so, I think I would have had it in me to kill them. There was still so much unresolved anger from the first theft.

Occasionally I think about what I would do if confronted by another thief and I was in a position to retaliate. There is still a part of me that would kill.

I acknowledge that this is a part of me. However, in contrast to this there is also a more highly developed part of me. This part of me would have me act quite differently. If I am faced with such a situation, I hope it is the more highly developed part of me that is in control.

I feel a little sad to acknowledge this negative part of me. But what saddens me more is that nations are so often run by people for whom that baser part is in control.
 
Being a man
07.11.04 (6:55 pm)   [edit]
Why is it that in our Western society, and to a lesser extent the East too, we males feel the need to prove our masculinity?

I remember the previous time I returned home after a trip to Asia. I was visiting a kindergarten for a performance. When I got there the kids had to clean up the play area to give me a performance space. A plastic crate had been filled with wooden blocks. It would have been quite heavy. A few kids were going to carry it together. But one little boy, all of four years old, insisted that he could do it by himself. He struggled to lift it. But he had to do it. The poor little bugger. Already he felt the need to prove that he was a 'man'. It hit me all the more because in the five weeks I had spent in Thailand I had not seen that sort of behaviour, certainly not from a kid that age.

When I used to sell books to schools, the librarian would sometimes send some boys to help me unload samples from my van. They came in plastic crates that stacked. One was enough for me to carry without busting my back. Books are heavy. But so many boys had to stack a second crate to prove how strong they were—to prove they were men.

Just occasionally, a liberated librarian would send girls too. The girls never felt the need to take a second crate. Never.

This phenomenon manifests itself in many ways. Macho sports is one that comes to mind. Men conquering as many women as possible is another.

Hey guys, there is an easier way. Next time you are alone in your bedroom strip off in front of the mirror. Forget about how good your body is. That has nothing to do with it. Just check if there is a penis and testicles there and not a vagina. Size has nothing to do with it. Basically there are two genders on this earth: male and female. If you have a penis and testicles then you are male. If you have a vagina, you are female. It's as easy as that. There are no degrees of masculinity. You can't be more or less male. That's a fallacy. It is one or the other. So, do the test. Make up your mind which you are and forget it. Get on with your life. There are much more important things you can be doing than all this crazy macho shit.
 
Love: what is it? 3
07.08.04 (6:58 pm)   [edit]
Erica was one of the two great loves of my life. We had great communication and great passion. Perhaps it was the combination of both of these which led to great sex. Our thought processes are very similar which led to good understanding between us. Communication was a commitment. We always had to get to the bottom of everything. When things were going well between us the loving was something wonderful. When there was a disagreement, we sure knew how to give each other a hard time—and it must have kept the neighbours amused.

This was an on-again, off-again relationship for about four years. Usually she was the one calling it off. Eventually, I made a decision: I am not putting up with this shit anymore.

We have remained friends and the love continues. A few weeks before I was about to leave for Asia we had dinner together. She had been living in another city for a few years. She told me she had done a lot of growing and that she was now a different person. She acknowledged that she admired the way I thought and that she was thinking more like me. She acknowledged that she was the problem in the past and that she wasn't like that anymore. She was suggesting that we give it another go. I said, 'I am going to Asia.' She talked about visiting me. I said she was welcome but she wouldn't be able to handle the heat.

Two weeks later she was engaged to someone else.

That was 20 months ago. She has since broken that relationship off and become engaged again. Each time she has told me that this person is the right one and each time I have wished them well.

I give all that as an introduction because what I really want to focus on is one of the games that Erica played. I will tell the story of one example.

Erica was studying. She had gone back to high school as a mature age student. She has since got her degree and is doing great things with her life professionally. But at that time she was still doing high school. She had finished her final exams and the results were to be released in the morning newspaper which hit the newsstands at about 2 or 3 am. She is a night owl. She can happily stay up all night. I am an early to bed, early to rise person. She wanted me to come with her to collect the newspaper at 2 am. I said I could wait until six to hear the result.

"But I want you to be there to share it with me."

"Then wait and share it with me at six."

"I can't wait."

"Sorry."

"If you loved me you would want to share this moment with me."

Well, I don't understand what this has to do with love. If it was my results I would not be staying up till 2 am to get the paper. I would probably pick it up the following morning at 9 or 10. But she wanted more from me than I would give to myself.

This is just one example. Others were, "If you loved me you would ring every night." and "If you loved me you would want to live with me."

I know that Erica loved me and still does. However, while we love someone it does not mean that we always behave in a loving way. I do not consider this type of behaviour to be love. It comes from insecurity and it is a manipulative way of attempting to control the other person.
 
Friendliness
07.06.04 (6:45 pm)   [edit]
One night while having dinner in a food stall in Singapore I found myself having a conversation with another Westerner about which people were most friendly. He had travelled to more places than me but tended to stay in each place for a shorter time. I forget the actual country now but it was somewhere in South America that he said he encountered the friendliest people.

He did not particularly like Thais. I guess his attitude to them was a little cynical. He said when you meet a Thai woman they always say to you, 'How long you stay Thailand?' His interpretation of this was: however many days you stay, I multiply that by how much money I can get out of you each day. I believe he was wrong, for two reasons. Yes, this is one of the first questions that Thais ask you but it is not just women. Thai men say the same thing. Perhaps I should have asked my acquaintance why he was only meeting women. Secondly, Thais rarely understand verb tense. Thai language does not work like English. After a year in Thailand I still cannot tell you if that question means 'How long have you stayed in Thailand?' or 'How long will you stay in Thailand?'. And I don't think the Thais know, it is just a question they have been taught at school to say when you meet an English speaker. Others in that basic repertoire include "Where you going?"; "Have you eaten?"; "What you do?"; "How old you?"; "Are you married?"; "Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?"; "How about your family?".

I have certainly found Thai people to be very friendly. Malaysians sometimes get annoyed when I mention how friendly Thai people are. I think they want me to say they are friendly too. While they are not unfriendly, they do not go out of their way the way that Thais do. I have now made three bus trips of about two hours each way within Malaysia. Looking back to my bus trips in Thailand, I am sure that if I had travelled that distance that many times on a bus in Thailand I would have been spoken to by a few of the people who I had sat next to. It doesn't happen every time but it is quite common. But no one has ever bothered to chat to me on a bus in Malaysia. It could be said that it is up to me, I could initiate conversation, but that is not the point. My behaviour is the same in both countries. But in Thailand they talk. It does not matter if it is a man or a woman, old or young, in Thailand they are more likely to chat with you. Until I lost her address, I was still emailling a high school student who initiated a conversation by offering me a sip of her Slurpee on a one hour bus ride in north-east Thailand.

I realise this is very superficial, and I know that true friendship is something much deeper. I am simply sharing my observations.
 
Love: what is it? 2
07.03.04 (8:41 pm)   [edit]
Thank you to Miss Kendy and Present Moment for your comments in relation to the question of "what is love?" I will comment on your comments in due course. More comments are welcome.

May I say before I go any further that I am not trying to teach anyone anything. I do not consider myself to know anything. I have more questions than answers. One of the reasons I write is to find understanding—an attempt to make sense of some of the babble in my head. For about 15 years I kept a daily journal which was read by no one else. (Except for a couple of my partners who snuk a look in an attempt to understand me better.) It is nice to have an audience for my thoughts. I thank all those reading this for the opportunity to share my babble.

I think love is perhaps undefinable, although the dictionaries attempt to do so, because it is so abstract. Perhaps each of us has our own illusion about what love is. Today I would like to focus on what is often perceived as love in relationships.

Moy would ask, "Do you love me?"

I would answer "yes". And by my understanding of the word, I did. And still do.

She would say, "But do you know the difference between 'love' and 'like'?"

"Yes", I would answer. "Do you?"

The conversation got bogged down there. We did not know enough of each other's language to take it further.

But later she would say to me, "So and so says that you should be doing..."

Funny it was never what she wanted. Just what her friends thought.

After a list of all the changes that were needed to make me acceptable, I would say "It is obvious that I am not the person you want in your life. Perhaps we should call it off."

"But I love you."

"No you don't. You love what you want me to be. That is not who I want to be. I am happy with me as I am."

But then she didn't want to let go.

It has taken me many years to reach this point. To be able to say. "This is who I am. If you love me you can let me go or accept me as I am but don't try to change me."

Thirty-something years ago, when I was engaged to Stephanie, I had taken her to my hometown to meet my family. During our holiday at my parents home she saw another side of me. In the company of my siblings I behaved in a way she had never seen before. She didn't like it. After about a week she told me so and said she wanted to call it off.

I cried! "No, please! I will change! I don't want to lose you." Eventually I convinced her to accept me and that I would comply with her wishes. I also gave away my power to her. I taught her how to control me. That is what we do when we are that desperate. Desperate for "love".

When I look back on our time together. That day was a demonstration of Stephanie's love for me. She was prepared to acknowledge that I was not the person she wanted in her life. She loved me enough to let me go so that I could go on being me. Being honest to myself. Sadly, I did not have enough self-love to handle that.

Twenty-odd years later the tables were turned. I was the one saying, "Yes, I love you. But not in the way I want to love a partner. Our needs have changed. You are no longer the person I want to have in my life. I am not the person you want, otherwise you would not have been trying to change me for years. It is time for us to move on. We can each find someone more appropriate to our needs."

This time she cried. Now she was saying, "I will do anything you want." But I didn't want to change her. I loved her enough to let her go. To let her be who she was.

Now she was the one who was desparate. And now I was strong. Strong enough to walk away. Perhaps not strong enough to cope with her reaction. Not without scars anyway. Once she realised that I was not coming back she did everything in her power to hurt me. Was she acting out of love? I think not. Eventually, I think she realised this. Almost twelve years later she rang to apologise to me. Perhaps this was triggered by my moving overseas indefinitely. The apology was, in my opinion, an act of love.

For some time now Stephanie has been happily married to a man she considers to be her soulmate. If I did not love her enough to let her go she would not have found this. I wish them well. I wish them love.
 

Seeker's blog


Hi, I'm Joe Seeker. Welcome to my blog.

I am young enough to remember. Old enough to have made a few mistakes. Wise enough to have learned from some of them. Curious enough to still be making them. Humble enough to admit that I still have a lot to learn.

I choose to hang out in Asia because I find that living in an unfamiliar environment increases the learning opportunities. Besides it's fun. And when you are obviously different, they are more likely to make allowances for you. (Pity we can't do that in the West.)

Currently I am in Malaysia but that could change shortly.

This blog is a record of my thoughts, experiences and reminiscences. If you enjoy, it come back again. I usually write offline and post when I get to a cyber cafe. At the moment that's about two or three times a week but that could change when I move.

Like all blogs on this site, this one is copyright.
© Joe Seeker, 2004. If you want to quote me in brief, feel free, but please acknowledge this page with its address.