To Be Or Not To Be...

"问世间情为何物,直叫人生死相许？"

Watched finish Condor Heroes. Above is just abt the most famous line in practically the whole anthology of Jin Yong’s period novels. In light of what’s been going around the past couple of days, I guess it made what the show questioned doubly poignant.

Someone said to me last night that I’m the kind of guy who wants the girl to tell me that she likes me. And that’s true, I guess. I can see why she said that. But pardon me, that’s not wholly true.

Watching the show made me wonder… I was very struck by the kind of devotion shared by Yang Guo and Xiao Long Nu. Ignoring the opinions of everyone in the world is usually the easiest thing to overcome in a relationship. The courage to believe that the other person genuinely loves you is just abt the hardest thing to do. Anyone who has been hurt before will testify to the almost unbreakable instinct for self-preservation, where one no longer dares to love with the same degree of abandonment as before. The first cut is the deepest, they say. And once its been made and the walls have gone up, they usually stay up.

So it was with those before me, so it is with me, and so it will be with those who come after me.

I guess asking the girl to assure me of her affections is my selfish way to protect myself. I spent 4 years walking down the one-way street, and its not a path that’s easy to walk out of. I told myself I never want to go down there again, but given my amazing inclination to do what’s ridiculous and stupid, I guess this was one way of trying to preserve myself.

16 long years of separation…and they could tide over it. Today we talk abt how overseas studies can kill a relationship. I know its just a story, but as I sat watching the show and thinking to myself abt putting it in context of today’s relationships… what came to mind is the fact that one person’s commitment can sometimes be what surfaces the other person’s. Commitment to each other cannot be renewed by one party alone. I can only be as sure of her as she is sure of me. As your commitment to me wanes, so will mine to you eventually weaken.

Take heed, all you out there in a long-term relationship. Love is hard work. What you get from the relationship will only be as good as you give. Too easily the flutter of a heartbeat is all it takes for us to convince ourselves that we’ve thought things through properly already, and can work things out. Only upon the aftermath of our failures do we own up to our own short-sightedness. The ones who learn their lessons will admit to their fault. Those who never develop that maturity will continue to blame time and chance, and fault the circumstances that led up to the breakdown and inevitable breakup.

Hopefully by the time I find someone in my life, I’d have grown up enough to not only know this, but to actually practice what I preach.