...maybe.

You gotta read this 1st.

Why i am blogging on this? cause i want to respond to that question at the end, not so much to answer a question, so much as to question myself. that and my blog needs a post to say i'm still alive. heh.

but also, cause it strikes a serious chord with me. *ding!* :D

sorry couldn't resist. anyway. on with it.

ps. you may want to scroll down to (2) if you don't want to read my slightly rant-filled reasoning and get to the "world true-love vs Jesus true-love" bit.

(1)

Quote: " It didnt seem like TRUE LOVE was an issue at that time. Why has love become such a complicated issue today?"

as always, i will first blame the media. haha. its not the real reason behind our current state-of-society, but its sorta like korean ginseng (i learnt this from da chang jin!); it takes what is happening to the world, and amplifies it greatly, to the extent that it creates a hyper-reality or hyper-consiousness that affects anyone who is in contact with it. So in a sense, with that said, the people less affected by this hyper-reality would then be people who do not partake of it; like those tribespeople living in some faraway part of this earth.

in essence, the media takes what most people are thinking, and impresses it upon everyone, who then consiously or sub-consiously are affected.

how does this apply to the question? simply, the appearance of a thought that a "perfect life" seems attainable, a "and they all lived happily ever after" dream that seems possible.

course, the dream rarely happens in real life. but we all still believe it might, because in a strange way, its so much easier to survive now.

Life as we know it consists of childhood to school to work to old age to death. the beginning and the endings we have no control over, the middles - we do. as long as you work hard, you can earn money, and with money you can survive. you don't need to know where your veggies or meats are coming from, as long as they are safe to eat and can be bought from your nearby foodstall. you don't need to worry about shelter, coz somehow there are places to live in as long as you have money. you dont need to worry about (most) illnesses, coz the doctor round the corner will set you right.

and so with a world where simply surviving is easy (relatively of course), we begin to feel a lil bit of power coursing through us; "wowee, i can control my destiny". in perspective; "since i know i can survive in this world, a perfect life is possible. a perfect spouse is possible". without the perspective of survival in us, we lose sight of how easily we are affected by external sources. we begin to look inward, to fulfill our very selves.

in other words, we begin to take everything other than ourselves for granted.

recap: the media impresses on us a thought, the thought being that we (more specifically 'I', the individual) are the center of the universe. and this thought, while always existing within us, is pushed to the fore by the ability to easily survive in this world. we thus now desire the best of all things for ourselves, including what we all now call our "ONE TRUE LOVE".

and since we all selfishly desire what is within us, we fail to see what it is to really love; we merely are looking for someone to fit into our desires. thats why it always seems complicated. it isn't.

we simply have lost sight of what love is.

and i haven't even started on Jesus yet. lol.

note: I would love to go into my currently baseless conjecture on the probability of the "TRUE LOVE" syndrome beginning to occur during the industrial revolution (1750 - 1830) and becoming throughly evident in the romantic period (1820-1910), but since that would only prove my above point, i shall leave it. Ask me if you want tho. :)


(2)

Quote: "How do we reconcile the world's concept of love with Jesus' self-less love? Do criteria and ideals still matter?"

we can't. simply because the world's blind and selfish 'love' is self-fulfilling, aka pride, and that is opposite of Jesus' self-less love.

in context, untill someone puts aside his very self (and thus criteria and ideals) for the sake of another person, then only can love exist.

sounds familiar? it should. ;)

but now i get off the theoratical high horse, and begin to look at my own life and answer... Do my criteria and ideals still matter?

honestly, yes. some are reasonable (to me heh), and to be very honest, some are not. being Christian doesn't make me any less human, and thus i still am a selfish person.

being Christian however, makes me able to drop my pride in view of God's love. granted i don't do it all the time, but by God's grace i am able to; but not by my own strength, rather being enabled to by the Holy Spirit.

so in context, how does this affect my (non-existant) love life? looking back on my thoughts and life in the past, i do see a difference as compared to now, when i am more God-focused than ever.

i am a romantic. my ideal love life is thus chock full of all the cliches and criterias and events that you get in movies, tv dramas, et all. i won't state them for my own privacy's sake (heh), but i will say that i'll probably be very hard to please.

the flip side of course is then as a romantic, i'ld be one of those 'i would give it all for you' kinda people, in hopes of attaining what would be my 'one true love'.

the bad side of this would then be being blinded by my own 'version of reality' and not caring of how my actions are actually affecting the other person.

in hindsight i realise how this has actually negatively affected many of my relationships. by God's grace and mercy many of these have since been patched, but to be honest i must have caused quite a bit of grief.

In view of Christ, i place God in the center of any relationship now, putting the control of it in His hands, and not trying to do all things according to my desires. It means letting go of things that i would have held on to. It means not pursuing things that i would have liked to. It means courage to move on, and love to forgive.

Somehow now i look at everyone and i see people differently. Ha, its hard to explain but in essence people are more beautiful in general. Accepting people and looking past differences is easier.

i still dream, but now i choose to put God into that dream, and wait patiently for His timing and not mine.

and hopefully, may it be so in the love that may be.