Do
you take delight in watching films, listening to pop music, or reading books?
For English learners, movies, songs, and books are one of the most wonderful
sources to explore the language! You can indulge in your favorite pastime and
still learn some expressions, words of wisdom, and oftentimes good lessons
while you’re at it.
#100.
On Love (authored by Alain de Botton)
This novel
offers a realistic look at love between a man and a woman who meet by chance on
a flight from Paris to London. As their relationship grows, they begin to
discover and better understand their deepest emotions. The story begins when
the narrator meets Chloe on a flight from Paris and follows their relationship
through its different stages. Though it’s a very short novel with little plot,
it offers a thoughtful collection of reflections on love and relationships. In
many ways, it feels like a beautifully condensed version of De Botton’s ideas.
“My mistake was to confuse a destiny to
love with a destiny to love a given person. It was the error of thinking that
Chloe, rather than love, was inevitable. The moment when I would feel that our
meeting or not meeting was in the end only an accident and would also be the
moment when I would have ceased to feel the absolute necessity of a life with her
– and thereby have ceased to love her.”
ð In this part, the narrator (i.e., Alain
De Botton) asserts that romantic obsession can make us believe a particular
person is our destined soulmate. In reality, our deep human need to love is
what is inevitable, while meeting any particular person is largely a matter of
chance. We may turn an accidental encounter into a story of fate and convince
ourselves that this person is uniquely meant for us. But once we see the
relationship as a fortunate coincidence rather than destiny, the magic can
begin to fade. Perhaps this is the bittersweet or somewhat cold paradox of love.
the belief that someone is irreplaceable may be part of what makes them feel so
deeply irreplaceable.
“We fall in love hoping we won’t find in
another what we know is in ourselves, all the cowardice, weakness, laziness,
dishonesty, compromise, and stupidity. We throw a cordon of love around the
chosen one and decide that everything within it will somehow be free of our
faults. We locate inside another a perfection that eludes us within ourselves,
and through out union with the beloved hope to maintain (against the evidence
of all self-knowledge) a precarious faith in our species.”
ð Alain de Botton suggests that romantic love
can become a way of escaping our own flaws, frailty, and disappointments. We
may idealize our partner, imagining them as free from the weaknesses we see in
ourselves and other people. By placing a “cordon of love” around them, we
create an illusion of perfection and temporarily restore our faith in human
goodness. Perhaps, in loving an idealized person, we are also trying to believe
that goodness still exists within ourselves and humanity.
“Yet we can perhaps only ever fall in
love without knowing quite whom we have fallen in love with. The initial
convulsion is necessarily founded on ignorance. Love or simple obsession? Who,
if not time (which lies in its own way) could possibly begin to tell?”
ð True love often begins with a mystery.
That is, when we first fall for someone, we don’t really know them—we know only
the “image” we have created about that person in our minds. That powerful first
spark could be genuine love or simply romantic obsession. Only as time passes
do we begin to see the person as they truly are and discover what our feelings
really mean. In love, perhaps time is the only honest test, but even time can
sometimes deceive us.
“Without love, we lose the ability to
possess a proper identity; within love, there is a constant confirmation of our
selves. It is no wonder that the concept of a God who can see us has been
central to many religions: to be seen is to be assured that we exist, and all
the better if one is dealing with a God (or partner) who loves us. Surrounded
by people who precisely do not remember who we are, ………… is it not comforting
to be able to find refuge from dangers of invisibility in the arms of someone
who has our identity firmly in mind?”
ð In this excerpt, we are reassured of
the well-known idea that “man is a social animal.” We all need others to see
and remember us in order to feel that we truly exist and matter. In a world
filled with total strangers who may never know or remember us, love gives us a
sense of identity and belonging. Especially when that person is a loving
partner, we are given the reassurance by their warm attention to us and keeping
us in their heart. In a similar way, the idea of an all-seeing God may have
emerged from our deep desire to be witnessed and never forgotten. Perhaps being
truly seen is one of the deepest forms of love.
“The arrogance of wanting to be loved had
emerged only now it was unreciprocated – I was left alone with my desire,
defenseless, beyond the law, shockingly crude in my demands: Love me! And
for what reason? I had only the usual paltry, insufficient excuse: Because I love you…”
ð Unrequited love strips away our pride and exposes
the rawness of human desire. When our feelings aren’t returned, we suddenly see
how vulnerable and desperate our need to be loved can become. Loving someone
does not mean they owe us their love in return. Rejection reminds us of this
painful truth that is “I love you” is a feeling, NOT a claim on another
person’s heart.
**
Jean’s Small Thoughts:
As I
turned the pages of this novel—which at times felt less like a conventional
story and more like the author’s private notes or intimate diary—I found myself
being led through the many stages of feelings and emotions that unfold between
two people in love. With each chapter, my mind seemed to grow clearer about
what truly happens between lovers: how we idealize one another, how desire
grows, how expectations take shape, and how easily love can become tangled with
insecurity, fear, disappointment, and longing. Yet, at the same time, my heart
grew heavier. The author’s relentless anatomy of romantic feelings was so raw,
so honest, and so painfully accurate that I sometimes wished I could look away.
There was something unsettling about seeing our most private emotions laid
bare—especially the ones we would rather not admit even to ourselves.
Perhaps
that is what makes this book both fascinating and painful. It does not simply
celebrate love; it carefully dissects it. It examines the hopes and illusions
we create around another person and reveals how much of what we call “love” may
actually come from our own desires, expectations, fears, and need to be loved.
The more clearly I understood the psychology behind romantic relationships, the
more difficult it became to hold on to the comforting idea that love is always
pure, magical, or destined. Yet knowing all this does not necessarily make the
desire to love disappear. If anything, it makes the human longing for
connection seem even more mysterious.
As the
author writes in the novel, “If romantic positivism could be of no help, then
the only valid wisdom was the stoic advice never to fall in love again.” But
should we really take that advice? Are we supposed to retreat from love
altogether, living like monks or hermits in caves, simply because loving
someone may eventually bring us pain? Should we convince ourselves that falling
in love is nothing more than willingly walking into an illusion that will
eventually leave us wounded in the self-inflicted snuggery of misery?
Perhaps
the more difficult question is this: What would you do if life gave you another
chance to love someone? If you knew in advance that your passion and devotion
might eventually lead to heartbreak, disappointment, or even a seemingly
endless cycle of emotional suffering, would you still take the risk? Would you
willingly jump once again into that strange, warm, and sometimes painful
shelter of love, knowing that misery might be waiting somewhere inside it?
I suppose
there may never be a final answer to that question. It is a question we may
carry with us throughout our lives—a question that can either frighten us away
from love tomorrow or, despite everything we have learned, encourage us to open
our hearts once again. Perhaps the purpose of understanding love is not to protect ourselves from ever
being hurt. Maybe it is to understand the risk and choose to love anyway. So, after
all the doubts, illusions, disappointments, and painful truths, I still wish
you and me love—no matter what.
Alain de Botton, the author of On Love
