Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Love in Spurts

Occasionally, Mae and I have one of those soul-searching, mind-bending conversations. Okay, okay, most other times we just talk rubbish, but last night, it was one of those.

"Do you think that it's possible to love someone in one continuous flow over time," I ask the wife, in a moment of brilliance, "or do people love each other in little spurts and spatter?"

"Well?"

"Erm..."
this was a tough one for her.

"C'mon," I demanded, "which is it?"

"Erm... you answer first lah!"
It was a cheap shot, cop-out answer. It was also the kind of non-commital answer you would expect from a lawyer. (Yes, honey, you can sue me for that if you like... Hahha! ) But there in her non-answer, was her answer.

I don't think humans have the emotional capacity to love one another without taking a break. Admit it, I'm clever and you agree with me. :)

7 comments:

  1. Ceh! Simple what. See how I explain.
    See, think of yourself as, say, a computer. Not really a computer, lah, this is metaphor.
    In the olden days, when memory was expensive and processors were slow, computers could only run one program at a time.
    Like simple animals lah, one emotion at a time, or one thought at a time. The more advanced computer, the more programs it could run at one time, and the more kinds of programs it can run.
    So consider lah, let's say emotions are like computer programs. And we're very advanced computers, can run many programs at the same time.
    Some programs, like your current mood and the dominant emotion, is running in the foreground. Dominant processing priority!
    But there are other programs in the background as well: fear of death lah, desire for your life's goals lah, your feelings for your children. Not as high a processing priority, but still there what.
    It's like... ha, you're running a browser right now reading this, right? That's the dominant program, the one with highest processing priority.
    But you sure got other programs also, like antivirus, internet firewall, printer spooler, TCP/IP stack. All in the background. All of those are important as well.
    So... love can be like antivirus. Get it?

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  2. wow! that's a really long analogy.. metaphor.. whatever you call it. It english does it mean one is actually loving continously but just not a priority? I wouldn't want to think I love my kids in spurts and spatters.

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  3. I believe in continuous flow of love. Just that, the flow maybe slow or fast. Sometimes it would go low tide, sometimes high. I believe that when you love someone, you would tend to have a certain affection for that person, it would slowly turn into a habit. And we definitely hope, this kinda habit would not die. :)

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  4. :lol: Dammit, T-Boy, that was a blogpost on its own. But no, I dun agree with the antivirus analogy. The way love drives us, I'd go as far as to say it's the OS. The most important application, but usually taken for granted.
    KI, in my opinion, most of the time our idea of love is the conscious act of love, which is the stuff we do to please our spouse, or the way we protect our children, or the way we repay our parents. But the subconcious feeling of love, (which fluctuates between madly-in-love, to just plain annoyed, to I-didn't-think-of-you-at-all-today) is not within our control at all!

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  5. Sure Gina. The low tide is what I'm talking about.

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  6. *duuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh??!!*
    *blink blink blink*

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  7. Lucky it's filed under drivel, MOTT!

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