"Great Love"

Today, I came across the blog of a dear friend of mine. In his blog, he wrote about something called the "great love", in the form of a short story that he made up while slurping Korean noodles alone. A very creative piece and I can picture how he was probably feeling at that Korean joint around the corner of his house. I could just picture him there... transcending into a world where he sees no "great love"... at least, not for him.

Note: Excerpts from his blog are in quotes.

"You will be emancipated from all sufferings as long as you find a great love that will stand by you. Essentially, this soul would complete yours," said Death to the lost soul Kei at the beginning of his journey. Kei had reincarnated into many types of men- kings, beggars, bankers and even a pop star but could not find his "great love." It's true that in all his reincarnations he had found someone to spend the rest of that life with however feelings were not so strong and their love for each other was simply out of habit."

So, as a result, Kei asked Death to reincarnate him into a gay male since "it would take a great momentum for two men to be in love with each other" and it surely would result in this "great love" that Death spoke about. Death agreed to this. As a gay male, Kei experienced all the usual depressions and confronted all the usual battles as part of his self-discovery process, but one day, he met the man of his dreams, fell in love, and "grew comfortable in the relationship". Kei felt "so free in the relationship" that he felt that he could "say anything to his beloved and not worry".

"He would complain, rant, and show his irritations when he had them. Soon, his beloved started becoming cold. His feelings changed and he had no care for Kei anymore- he could be dead or alive and he wouldn't care."

"'I don't want to see you anymore Kei, let's just be friends,' said the beloved."

"Kei died alone and once again met Death with blank eyes and said to him, 'This great love you speak of- it doesn't exist.'"


Sigh... after reading his blog... I felt sad. Sad because I understood what he was talking about. I thought about it a little and decided to respond...

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Deart friend, this "great love" you spoke about in your story only exists for those who choose it. You have to decide/choose to love someone, not just do it. Unfortunately Kei and his beloved didn't make this conscious choice... perhaps, it is because making this choice sometimes involves losing a part of yourself in what we call an unselfish act of love. Sometimes in life, we just have to accept the fact that we can't always have the cake and eat it too. :)
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I think the key to this "great love" is that it has to be a choice as much as it is a natural course in life. We need to actively "choose" to love someone for all the good and the bad in him/her. Sometimes making this choice, we have to compromise our own self. This compromise is called unselfish love. Few can do this in life... hence, few will have this "great love". Unfortunately... this "great love" can only be given as individuals... never taken. In other words, you can only give this "great love" to the person you love, but you can never take "great love" or demand "great love" from the person you want it from. This is also when this "great love" often fails us it seems... because often it only travels one way.

The bottom line... if we all can become cable of giving this "great love", perhaps one day, there will be more "great love" out there to be received... but, it all starts within ourselves... the first step is to be able to love unselfishly.

Unselfish love can be a demon in itself... but, it is a personal choice.