Love

By: Lillian Lau Bei Jia, 4 Socrates Love. One of the very few four-letter words that actually mean something positive (unlike some that I know of). It has been defined in many ways, by many people, philosophers, dictionaries and great pieces of literature alike and yet, it is still undefined. It is a complicating thing, thislove. It is the mother of all paradoxes, the most obscure of the indistinct. In a nutshell, love is complicated. Its pure essence of mystery and incomprehensibility is what makes us, as human beings so drawn to its blatant yet secretive nature. Love exists in so many different ways, in so many shapes and sizes. The many questions that surround our society today are centered around guess what? love. There is no matter how messed up love sounds one thing that is absolutely sure about this word: it applies to us all. As human beings homo sapiens, whatever it is our nature to love. For a little boy, love is his mummy and daddy and the Hot Wheels toy race car in his grubby little hands. For a teenage girl, love is giddy romance and British boy bands. To parents of course, we all know this one love is represented by the children they have brought up to full bloom. To an old grandfather, love is sitting in his favourite armchair, watching BBC News Channel while being surrounded by his four children, his beloved wife and fourteen, very lively grandkids. You see, love takes on many interpretations in our lives. It comes in so many forms and incarnations. Maybe that is why we all, as mere people, will never be able to find one, true meaning to love. But I do not think we have to. Love as love is enough already to fill our hearts with joy and happiness. Can animals love? Can animals feel love like we do? I am glad that Yann Martel brought this question up in his bestselling book, The Life of Pi. Pi loved Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger he spent almost a year with on a boat, lost at sea, but did Richard Parker love him in return? The eyes of an animal are unfathomable, and we will never be able to understand them, but who knows? Breeding and rearing their offspring might not just be an instinct of survival after all. A close-minded person might say this: An orangutan only rears her young to ensure the continuation of the genetic lineage of the species. Pah. How can it be said that an orangutan cries for her child, kidnapped by poachers, as grieving because the genetic lineage of her species has ended? Like it or not, we have to admit that maybe, just maybe, animals may feel love after all. Sadly, love as a word has been taken very lightly. Its implications on our hearts and emotions no longer have the deep meaning and effect that it had so many, many years ago when love was not a word that was uttered lightly. The word love has become overly used, like a kitchen cloth, and the young nowadays do not appreciate it enough to stop screaming the word to their favourite celebrities. We, as a society, use it so often, it has become as air is to our lungs. However, love is something that, by loosest definition, means a great devotion to someone or something important in our lives, something that we would terribly miss if it were gone, someone you can go to in times of need and hardship. Underappreciated, much?

Moral degradation in modern society is no longer an alien topic in our newspapers and has become a hot topic for aunties to gossip about. Here, though, I would like to emphasize instead on what we call love degradation. Our society today have become so unemotional and unloving that the meaning of you must learn to love before you learn to hate almost no longer exists. A child no longer expresses love for his or her parents. Instead, he or she shouts and yells at his or her elders over petty matters like pocket money and new hand phones. Grown-ups send their parents to welfare homes because they consider it too much of a burden to care for the elderly. Repaying their parents love? Hah! If they cannot even repay their bank debts, how do they repay their parents for their love and sacrifice over the years? It is very disheartening to see this kind of unloving coldness slowly creep and take root in our society not only in families, but in insurance and business, where that green, crisp paper called money is worth more than the life of a client. Today, it seems that people are becoming more and more excessive. They want more money, more power, bigger cars and thinner iPads. As Cheryl Cole once sang: Too much of everything can make you sick, even the good can be a curse. Does this apply to love? Most definitely. In Greek mythology and Shakespearean literature, love is often associated with death. Why? Isnt love supposed to be a wonderful thing? Let us all take a pinch of salt from Romeo and Juliet, shall we? Their deep, undying love for each other only ended with their deaths. Love can lead a person to do rather irrational, unsafe things like drinking cyanide or jumping off tall buildings. You see, all religions preach moderation and rationality, and even in love we must keep a level head, no matter how much Stephanie Meyer says otherwise. Too much love can be bad for your health. Love. The single four-letter word that can mean an thousand and one things. Love is easy, love is complicating. Love is hideous and love is beautiful. Love is wonderful, yet it can be terribly dangerous at times. Do you see it now? Love is such a powerful word and yet we use it so often without contemplating its meaning. All the definitions and philosophies written by wise men will not make the slightest sense if we ourselves do not know what it is truly like to love. Let me say this: everyone loves, but not everyone hates. Love brings people together, causes family feuds, joins two individuals in matrimony and does so many other things. That is the power of love. So what does love mean? By all means, do look it up in the Thesaurus, but the definition, ultimately, comes from your heart.