We can find many definitions of love. Here is but two of them: a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness; a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
Wherever we are love is on the air especially when its Valentines day. But still until now there is not distinct and uniform definition of love. We can only describe it. The most easy of all is – love is love. But what is love for me? Can it transgress death? Does everyone experience it? Can I reject it? Is there a need for it? These are just some of the questions that come to our minds when we think deeply of love.
Love has its misconceptions as discussed in our lessons. We can equate love to sex and romance or even love as a means to possession. This is not the nature of love. It is about giving one’s self and finding that self with another. Once I heard my teacher in another subject say that love is a competition. It is a way to show your partner how best you can give yourself to him/her.
Some may say that love is physical. That love is only a response to another whom the agent feels physically attracted to. Accordingly, the action of loving encompasses a broad range of behaviour including caring, listening, attending to, preferring to others, and so on. This is what the behaviourist say in psychology. Those who consider love to be an aesthetic response would hold that love is knowable through the emotional and conscious feeling it provokes yet which cannot perhaps be captured in rational or descriptive language: it is instead to be captured, as far as that is possible, by metaphor or by music. That is why some people say that they are in love with their craft of trade.
But what about love that is considered taboo. Is it possible? Is it ethical?
When it comes to this, we always ask the question should we do it or not. Is it the appropriate action. In times where our society is constantly bombarded with new ideas…we can only grasp little understanding of it. For me, any relationship is a viable one as long as love is in the air…as long as it is a meaningful relationship. If society reprimands you then fight it... it is your life and not allowing you to exercise what you feel destroys human freedom which is in us all.
Have you ever had a moment when you thought all things simply fall into place? Or, even the notion that divine intervention is at play with the dealings of your life. Have you ever had an insurmountable problem that any solution would be a plausible affirmative action?
Dilemmas are common in this world. (By utilizing "this" and not "the" I may be implying that there must be another world but that is another matter) Let me tell you a synopsis of my life.
As a boy, the sciences especially the field of medicine greatly appealed to me. I was never the musically-inclined child that my mom hoped me to be. Neither was I an artistic child in the family. What I was interested in were the trivialities of the world, history especially the wars the havoc humanity, and of course the answers of the perverbial questions of what and why.
As I was a teenager, I already decided what career path would I take. I wanted to be in the medical field. Finances for my college was assured by my parents yet deep in my heart I knew something was amissed. I still partied. I enjoyed the trivialities of life. I still fool around. The young Ivan was not yet ready to make decisions which would have a domino effect on the future, on my future.
I wanted to take the course of Physical Therapy. In my opinion at that time, while Nursing was a good fall back it was not appealing to me. Medical Technology on the other hand was appealing for me, but knowing myself as a person who easily gets bored with microscopes and the laboratory in the end it would be detrimental on my learning process. I wanted interaction. Biology was another option. The perk of this course was that most subjects discussed here will be utilized for the NMATS. Hmmp, but the course does not appeal to me.
Physical Therapy was my choice. It was appealing to me and that would guarantee interest on the subjects, in turn that would be greatly profitable especially on my learning curve. It has patient interaction which I greatly desired. I was happy then.
All was not well though. As high school graduation neared the option of studying away from my hometown was closely nearing oblivion. The big problem was that I was young in the eyes of my family (young = irresponsible) and finances were not stable.
Because of this scenario, I was forced to compromise. I was to study here but still took up Physical Therapy. Although a bit disappointed with situation and desiring to have more. It was in my opinion that if I stayed here I would be compromising my future as well. I kept this feeling to myself.
Several months later, while I was studying Physical Therapy, I was experiencing culture shock. I was in a new school with new friends. They were not bad but they simply did not share my likings. To make things worse, I was also missing my barkada especially the mischiefs we shared and then, there was also the "mental lethargy" that I was experiencing. Not that I had low grades, it was surprinsingly high. I wanted interaction. I wanted extracurricular activities.
I finally decided to return to my alma mater. Not because of any reason whatsoever other than the desire to have extracurricular activities and be with my barkada. Nursing was my choice because the options were limited (Biology would definitely bore me). It was hard then. I was what we call an "irregular" student. I did not belong to any block of section so that means I'm all alone. No friends. All alone. But I endured it all knowing that this is only an empheral stage.
While I was in Ateneo, my father experienced a Myocardial Infarction. It was a disaster for us, emotionally and financially. Luckily, he recovered by God's grace but was forcibly resigned from his work because of his age and the stress involved.
At that moment, I knew why I had to stay. I was to take care of them. It is not that I have no plans at all at doing so. I was simply an eye-opener that I had to take care of them NOW. And even if financially we are not stable. I know I can make it through.
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Put not your trust in princes,
in man, in whom there is no salvation
When his spirit departs he returns
to his earth;
on that day his plans perish. (ps 146: 3 - 4, NAB)
