True love

Men and Women are programmed to attract each other. When people fall in love, the very primitive part of their brains light up and flood their bodies with the exciting hormone called oxytocin. It is the most wonderful feeling in the universe. We feel like walking in the air. We feel like we cannot live without each other. We would even die for each other. It could happen to Romeo and Juliet and it could happen to all of us. It is called romantic love.

It is also natural for the oxytocin level to diminish gradually over time, since people’s bodies simply cannot sustain that kind of intensity for extended period. It is why we can easily observe the sharp contrast of behaviors before and after marriage. I will not, however, be cynical about life-long loving relationship since I believe in something called true love.

True love is a commitment that people make and consciously keep. Man will love his woman despite of her annoying habits, because those annoying habits are hers. he loves her despite she does him wrong, because she forgives him when he makes his mistakes. He loves all of her including her imperfections, because she is doing the same for him. Years after the romantic courtship has passed, he will still love to gaze at her face and watch her moves since he associates her with many of his happy memories. He loves her and he knows she always loves him.

The difficulty about true love is, unlike romantic love which happens in almost everybody, that it requires two persons who understand the magic. It is created and can only be created by couples with conscious efforts in long run. I believe in true love since I have seen couples who find it and enjoy many years of loving relationship.

Love bites

Human beings are rather odd when it comes to love, but I have seen one of the most bizarre animal behaviors on the TV show The Most Extreme. Under the deep sea, a mile beneath, there lives Anglerfish. These fishes carry a lighted appendage in front of these mouths to lure their preys. It is not the most bizarre part.

Lady Anglerfish can grow up to 5 feet, massive jaws, and long sharp teeth—not exactly lovely looking. But who cares, it is pitch dark in deep sea. She can, however, leaves seductive trails of scent for gentleman Anglerfish to chase and track her down miles away. Overcome by the love scent, the gentleman Anglerfish which are usually one twentieth of the size of the lady fish will sink his teeth into his object of affection once he finds her. It is the first and last love bite of his life, for it immediately releases enzyme to digest his mouth and her skin. From then on, two of them attach together and mate for life.

But don’t be judgmental on Anglerfish too quick. Don’t we also vow to mate for life? Did poems write about love that lasts till the end of earth? How many love songs sing about wanting to hold each other forever? Aren’t we all a little bit Anglerfish want-to-be?

Dogville

I have always liked movies as long as I could remember. Then I met this girl who was a member of the U Film Society at the school I was attending. She introduced me to all kinds of foreign films of different cultures, customs and different ways seeing lives. I finally got over her, but my love for films seems will last for life.

Nicole Kidman’s Dogville is one of the strangest films that I disgust but I cannot forget after watching it. In fact, I saw the movie more than 2 years ago. When I wrote down names of my favorite movies, Dogville keeps popping up in my head though I knew I dislike it and I will not ever see that movie again.

The irony is: my intense dislike of the movie is perhaps because it so successfully tells the truth of human hypocrisy. Nicole Kidman is a young woman in the movie who seeks refuge in Dogville, a small town of handful residents. People are so kind and nice at the beginning until they figure out she is really alone, helpless and open for exploitation. Then every man in town uses her as a free hooker and the women abused her with great cruelty. The story ends in a biblical fashion like Sodom and a terrible taste in the mind; it is like taking a bad trip and an unforgettable one.

9/11, 2007

Since that one fateful day of 9/11 in 2001, New Yorkers gathered at ground zero every year to mourn their loss. Every year, my heart went to them when I heard the relatives of the victims took turns to read the names of the departed. This year, they also showed thousands of photos: images of the burning inferno, the instant of desperate people jumped to their death, the sad eyes of little girl waiting for her daddy who never made it back home…all are too much to bear no matter how many times you see them.

Among the photos, there is one T-shirt saying “No mercy, go to war”, granted it is an impulsive human reaction to a tragedy of this scale. Yet another photo shows a sign of wisdom: “Don’t turn tragedy into war”. Unfortunately, President Bush either took the advice from the T-shirt or the false report of CIA intelligence, he led the country to Iraq war. After over four thousands U.S. soldiers died and roughly six hundred thousand Iraqi civilians perished, Bin Laden is nowhere to be found, and more than ever there are more breeding grounds for suicidal jihad fighters.

Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn? (Peter, Paul and Mary)

Mistakes that people make

People make mistakes: too much water in the cooking, a wrong turn on the freeway, wrong spelling for the whole world to see. Or more seriously, they choose the wrong career or marry the wrong person. But none would be as cruel as the mistake I read in the news yesterday.

A 40-year old Ohio woman forgot to drop off her 2-year old daughter in the morning and left her in the car’s back seat in a hot summer day. She is a assistant principle of a middle school. She didn’t forget she had to get six dozens of doughnuts for the faculty meeting. She hustled, she hurried, and she was busy all day; only to find the little girl lay lifeless in the car as she returned at the end of the day.

There were people screaming for blood wanting the poor mother in jail. Everything would seem so insignificant compare to the cruelty that she has to live with her tragic mistake for the rest of her life. It is one of the saddest news I have read for a long time.