Monday, February 18, 2008

Is Love Just an Illusion

I find this snippet from Paulo Coelho's Eleven Minutes very catchy.

"She got to the airport, drank another cup of coffee and waited four hours for her flight to Paris, thinking all the time that he would arrive at any moment, because at some point before they fell asleep, she had told him the time of her flight. That's how it always happened in films: at the last moment, when the woman is just about to board the plane, the man races up to her, puts his arms around her and kisses her, and brings her back to his world, beneath the smiling, indulgent gaze of the flight staff. The words 'The End' appear on the screen, and the audience knows that, from then on, they will live happily ever after.

'Films never tell you what happens next,' she thought, trying to console herself. Marriage, cooking, children, ever more infrequent sex, the discovery of the first note from his mistress, the decision to confront him, his promise that it will never happen again, the second note from another mistress, another confrontation and this time a threat to leave him, this time the man reacts less vehemently and merely tells her that he loves her. The third note from a third mistress, and the decision to say nothing, to pretend that she knows nothing, because he might tell her that he doesn't love her any more and that she's free to leave.

No, films never show that. They finish before the real world begins."

It tells some of the truths when a marriage is becoming boring (most of them will turn it like this) and your spouse is going to seek for some excitements not in a "healthy" way but derail to infidelity and betrayal. This actually happens often and filmed in movie sometimes, they are the main contents of the sad love stories unlike the "princess and prince" type Paulo mentioned above.

The behaviors of the unfaithful spouse are changing, and traces of infidelity are opened up to many aspects in the life of a couple, up to a point that the worst detective in the world could tell what is happening. Then, you are facing the problem of "can you handle the truth?" type of paradox, you don't want to know but you can't control yourself to explore more.

Surprise, deny, hide away... but eventually you decide to confront the situation, rise up the problem with your angers. The behaviors of your spouse may change awhile but the recurrent problem will not go away because the "cause" of the problem unchanged: boring life plus unfaithful mindset (this may explain why people don't go to church on Sundays). Your reaction is to revenge and to threat because you want to get back the stolen love. you desire to get back what you possessed.

But the truth of life is that you can possess nothing, not even yourself. You cannot control the sadness, the frustration, the exploding feeling inside yourself; you cannot control yourself to regain a peaceful heart; only your anger controls you and moves you to fight back your love, it is not you but your angers.

Life is repeating and at last, you will find out you possess nothing, not your spouse, your lover, or even yourself, and what will be your reaction? No... and don't know... that is what the silence is resulted.

Afterword:

To love is something so complex and difficult and it makes most people spending a whole life to find it out and to learn. But most of them find nothing at the end because it won't happen if you find no one to connect your heart to; a heart can be mended by another heart only.

So take more care of people now, not your money, not your works, not your toys, not your wild ideas, starting from yourself, your spouse and family, your friends and to all people your encountered.


Other Updates:

1. I found the "Funky Business Forever", though not in PageOne, in Commercial Press bookstore. However, I was busy playing with my new Viewty and Paulo Coelho's novels so I only browsed the book briefly and found that the table of contents are exactly the same as the previous edition "Funky Business". As the authors said they had updated vast majority of the contents, I will check it out later.

2. I put a birthday on facebook as 12 Feb 2007 and several friends sent me birthday blessings. But my apology, it is actually not my real birthday but the anniversary date of my eye surgery last year, you can count on it as my reborn birthday. No matter how: thanks buddies. Happy New Year of Rat!
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