~MARCH'S DISCUSSION TOPIC~ LOVE

~ MARCH’S DISCUSSION TOPIC ~

LOVE

What is love? Does true love exist? Is there such a thing as everlasting love? Is love purely biological or spiritual? Is monogamy the only way? Is love entirely selfless or selfish? Love – the age-old conundrum.

First of all, I sincerely would like to thank all PETRONAS scholars for the great initiative of taking Malay A1, which can be described as a dream come true. I love you guys so much! And I love other IB students and teachers too! =) Love? What is love? Love is a big, meaningful word. People have searched for the meaning of love a million times over. But even the great philosophers, with their researched definitions, could not get hold of its true essence. Actually, the meaning of love could only be defined by ourselves.

Since I am not taking English A1 anymore, I am going to spread the importance of love in our life which I wrote about in my World Lit Essay. The important message that can be seen in the work of Hermann Hesse is the nature of father-son relationships. Throughout the work, the writer manifests the various emotional sentiments revolving around father-son relationships.  While the father appears to offer an abundance of love, the respective son seems to be unappreciative. Despite the efforts of the father, the sons continue to show signs of disrespect, indifferent attitudes, and to some extent, rudeness.

In the case of Siddhartha, his character is portrayed as someone who continues to offer his fatherly love, and harbours hope that someday, his son will be able to accept and love him as a father. Siddhartha is genuine and expects nothing in return other than his son’s love even as his son continues to show disrespect and cold behavior towards him. His love is without expectations and unconditional: “Still, he loved him, and he cherished the sorrow and suffering of love more than joy and happiness without the boy”. This is because the son has never met and felt his father’s love. However, Siddhartha chooses to suffer and be in the presence of pleasure of his son rather than enjoy worldly pleasure without his son’s company. Siddhartha even disregards Vasudeva’s advice and persuasion for him to give up. He continues wooing his son’s heart even as Vasudeva says to him: “Your son, dear friend, is causing you worry, and he is causing me worry too”. This shows that he tries to convince Siddhartha to give up as the son’s attitude has caused them much to worry about. Siddhartha still wants to love his son but meets resistance from him. He does not realise that his action is bound to an earthly desire.

In a subsequent passage, Siddhartha is reinforced as a determined person. He is tenacious in his decisions as he strongly believes that he will someday win his son’s heart if he continues to pursue his objective with love and patience. The bonding between the two is very strong as is evident in his willingness to face any circumstances in order to capture his son’s heart: “Look, I am fighting for him, I am wooing his heart, I want to capture it with love and friendly patience”. Eventually, he does not realise that the cycle repeats itself, which is the cycle of the nature of father-son relationship. However, Siddhartha loves his son and assumes that someday, the son will start to love him as a father.

As we can see, the bond between the father and the son is very strong until Siddhartha does not even care about his son’s attitude and still hopes for the son’s love. This behaviour shows how important love is until someone is willing to sacrifice his own feelings in order to be loved.

Fatin Shazea Jamaludin

Holding firmly a dark brown wrapped glass bottle in his left hand, Shawn yells strongly in pain till he can be heard in the next few houses. He has gulped the liquid in the bottle and now he is suffering. He staggers a few inches forward, trying to reach a portrait on a wall in his living room, and his vision is getting blurred and he feels truly dizzy. He tightly clutches his throat with both hands. The bottle glides down and breaks into pieces. Then, he collapses on to a rocking chair, falls down on the floor, crawls, and his fingers are scratching the floor. He is committing suicide.
Why? Is he mad? A short question clouds my thoughts. Why did he do so? Once again, a question storms in my confused mind.
Knock! Knock! Knock! Somebody is at the front door.
‘Open the door! Shawn! Open!’ A loud shrilling female voice is heard, urging Shawn to open the door but, actually, it is unlocked. That is Sherry. For Shawn, she is a special person in his life. Because there is no response, she pushes the door open and dashes into the living room. Startled, her eyes are on Shawn, who is lying on the floor. Quickly, she cuddles him.
‘I-I-I-’m sorry Shawn, it’s really my fault. I-I-I never mean to do so!’ Sherry wails.

Earlier, Shawn went to meet Sherry at her work place, a restaurant which is situated 25 metres from Shawn’s dwelling. He invited Sherry to sit with him because he had something to tell her and it seemed to be quite important for him. So, Sherry sat in the opposite chair. She felt pretty anxious with Shawn’s strange behavior as since their first meeting seven years ago, he had never been this serious.
Shawn removed something from his pocket and showed it to Sherry. He knelt and articulated, ‘Would you marry me?’
‘Are you mad?’, she replied loudly in surprise, frowning.
Her eyes showed her blazing wrath. Everybody in the restaurant was staring at them both, and some of them were clapping their hands. Shawn was surprised by her reaction and she was truly surprised by his action. Shawn thought Sherry loved him but she thought Shawn was out of his mind. Then, she slapped him, just nice on his left cheek, in public. A wave of shame went over him. He was dreadfully disappointed as he wasted seven years waiting for this moment. After that, he quickly left the restaurant.
‘Shawn! Wake up!’ Sherry cries to Shawn whose head is on her lap, but it is too late. He is dead. Tears stream swiftly from her eyes and she feels terribly lost.
I know that Shawn loved her more than himself and I do know that Sherry loves him, but due to her shyness, she harshly rejected his propose. Every day, Shawn would stare at the portrait on the wall about an hour. It was Sherry’s portrait. Shawn loved her very much. If he could not win her heart, he believed his life was valueless because he got cancer and he only could survive a few weeks more. Winning her love was the only thing he dreamt of. Sherry loves him as well. She keeps his picture in her purse and always smiles when she looks at it.

Wha can I do? I am just a little bird in a steel cage. I only can see and but can do nothing. If I am free, I am sure that I can help them and other people as well. And, of course, Shawn would be the happiest man in this world if he knew that Sherry loves him.
Ahmad Afandi

Valentine’s Day is around the corner and February is a month that is linked to love and lust. What is love actually and how do we define love? Love means different things to different people, but probably one thing they all have in common is the unselfish giving of ourselves and showing concern for each other. Some people might say that love is a burning passion and compassion for someone who makes you gasp at their every action. There are also certain people that do not believe in love, maybe because they have been hurt before. As for me, I would say that love is a complicated matter. It can hurt, and it can be great at the same time. My concern right now is: can we still love our partner when we are ninety? Will this feeling last forever though our partner changes a lot, not to mention he or she will become fatter and very different from whom they are right now?

               Love is blind, that is the reason why we can find many young couples kissing each other without thinking about their partner’s background.  They might say that love conquers everything or love is the strongest force on earth; what I can conclude about those young couples is: they are morons. In my opinion, in order to find the love of your life, you must begin by looking for the qualities that you want inside our partner. It might sound selfish, but this is the truth. What I mean by quality refers to the characters of our partner. Most young lovers do not really care about their partner’s personality. They will say love is blind, but think carefully, if your lover is a drug addict, will you still love him? Only stupid people will do that. Regarding my concern above, I strongly believe that we will not have the same feeling towards our partner when we are ninety. Logically, people change, so do our feelings. The only reason why we stick with the same partner is all the responsibilities that we have. If you are already married, surely, you do not want to start over again. What I mean is I do not think people that have a stable career would care to fall in love and have new babies all over again. They might as well stay with the same partner.

               Some people will say that love can bind two souls together forever until the day they die. This is another rubbish statement that does not make sense. How can you be so sure that your partner is created for you? As for me, I would say that everything would be sweet for you if the relationship is still at the early stage.  You do not know your partner’s inner self yet and I am sure everyone will try to hide their inner self especially in front of their loved ones. Things will somehow change when you have already known your partner for a long time; you will start to see their weaknesses.

               Next, I would say that I do not believe in love at first sight. Running through a field, arms wide open, a long embrace, and an even longer kiss. All these things will only happen in fairy tale. Love at first sight is actually lust at first sight. Seeing a stranger for the first time and admiring their beauty and physical attributes does not mean that you are in love. Most are so caught up with the first exciting moments of a new relationship that they go so far as to call it ‘love’. They do not understand their feeling, and the only thing that makes them attracted to each other is only appearances. Love takes time, commitment, nourishment, and trust. Without all those values, love will not be a success. In my opinion, people who say that they fell in love at first sight simply mean that they are in awe of the good looks they see.

               For some people, they would say that I have such a cynical view about love. I am just telling you my opinion, as I do not want people to keep on living in a fairy tale. Trust me, true love does not exist, as we are neither Cinderella nor Snow White. Wake up and get a life, step into reality. Maybe true love does exist, but it is hard to maintain given the distractions.

Sheril Emy Idayu Binti Abdul Latiff

What is love? Love is god. There’s a poem by Rumi, a Sufi poet, that I’d like to share with you:

“Gamble everything for love,

If you’re a true human being.

If not, leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.

You set out to find god, but then you keep

Stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.”

Loving others is not so much an obligation but a privilege. Also, loving someone gives that person value; valuing someone increases love. Love is a wonderful feeling. It’s the feeling I get when I’m river trekking, camping, being in the outdoors and swimming.

Does true love exist? Yes.

Is there such thing as everlasting love? Yes.

Is love purely biological or spiritual? It’s intertwined.

Is love entirely selfless or selfish? Neither.

Before I end, I’d like to send my love to Liza, Pamelyn and Jenifer. Thank you.

Surain A.

              

Love, there are people who die because of love. Love, with its power, can make people fly high into the sky. What does love mean? Is it just a relation of man and a woman or does it mean more than that? For me, love means more than just a relation, means more than holding hands together, means more than just about having sex. To find the person that we love is easy, but to keep loving the same person is difficult. So, in a relationship, it is important to understand each other. This is the basic rule of relationships. If we cannot understand our partner, problems will arise later on.

               Love happens everywhere. Love is funny, especially when it happens when you least expect it. Since I got to Sri KDU, I have seen quite a number of incidents where my friends ‘accidentally’ fall in love. This one incident, however, which I personally rate as very sweet, is currently happening to one of my closest friends here.

               He is a student that a student should be. He has his mind concentrated on studies and assignments. He mixes well with everyone around. Initially, to him, it was all joy and contentment everyday having friends by his side. It was indeed a new experience for him to socialize with girls especially. Until one day, he himself could not understand what actually happened to him. He realized that he missed that one particular person during the long school break. For some reason, he was not fond of what he was feeling. He found that the feeling was kind of a torture, causing him to think of her most of the time, distracting him from his own life.

               Jealousy is an everyday feeling for him now. He feels jealous when she talks to other people but not him. He tries everyday to overcome the feeling, but it will eventually end in failure. Everyday he has the hope of getting at least some attention from her. He comes to the conclusion that what is happening to him is unavoidable. For the first time ever, he feels weak, unable to fight the feeling. Love is complicated.

               As for me, I prefer to be a lonely soldier boy. :p

Mohd Izzuddin Bin Nor Azminuddin

An elusive word, love. Love is complicated. Love is natural. There, a series of statements associated with love. Can someone define love? How does it feel when someone falls in love? Is love real? Uh, so many questions!

As love is subjective, it differs from person to person. One may say that love is when one cares for his partner. Emphasis on the word “care”. Next, one could say that when people are in love, they sacrifice for their relationship. At the other end, love satisfies human. Humans are blessed with feelings. One of the feelings is love. Oh, love is now a kind of feeling! There are people who say that love is needed to produce offspring. HAHAHA. Eh, we are not supposed to love only humans. We can love our shirts, our country, our school, our car, etc. Whoa, love is so big it can embrace almost everything.

Even for the definition of love, so many troubles have to be endured. In a world driven by knowledge and logic, everything must fall back on definitions. Definitions are very important as they provide the basis that we can fall on. We cannot build a tower without laying the foundation first. If there is no real definition for love, what is love actually? See, a question like that can already trigger so many problems. Maybe love is just a word with no meaning. Oh yea! Baah, to people who say that they are in love. There are other words that they can use like care, need, lust and responsibility. If we already have specific words like these, do we need the word love? Expunge this word. It just adds more confusion to the already complex world. The combination of the letters L, O, V, and E is invalid. They do not carry real meaning. Maybe the best way to end this is by uttering 3 most famous words: I LOVE YOU. Hmm, no difference right! I told yea :P

Firdaus B Roslan