RE: What Is Love: Eye Love You.

Depicted is Le mur des je t’aime, also known as the “I Love You Wall”. This piece of art is located in a park, near Montmartre in Paris, France. Painted on the 612 tiles of enameled lava is the phrase “I Love You” in all (or at least most) of the languages in the world. Fragments of broken hearts are depicted as well, showing humanity torn apart, in which the Wall hopes to reunite. 

Beauty does not necessarily need to be natural, majestic, or of a grandeur scale – it can also be something as simple as a couple of phrases or a series of words. Everybody who visits this wall of love will be able to find the phrase in their native language, printed alongside many other languages. This shows us that we are all united as one within our world full of diversity and culture. 

As Oliver Platt once said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, which is why I decided to title my photograph Eye Love You. This wall serves as a subtle but effective reminder for Parisians and other tourists that they are loved.  Love is not always beautiful, but when you join with people who are the same as you and mend the broken fragments of your heart, it is the most beautiful and happiest feeling in the world. This photograph is not of something concrete, but rather stands for something abstract: the human’s natural feeling of love.

RE: Once Upon A Time...

I have a confession to make: a majority of the time, I only half-listen to the homilies...but I am trying to change that...because I tend to not understand them or it does not really connect with me.

Oh, for those non-Christians, a homily is the priest's sermon following the readings, usually in response or in relation to the message presented in the Gospel reading.

However, a recent homily definitely caught my attention.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote something related to happiness.

Coincidentally, or by fate (whichever you believe in...I know I am a strong believer in fate), the homily that the priest gave on the following Sunday was on happiness.

I'm gonna keep this short and to the point.

He said that happiness is in sharing and helping others.
I believe that is definitely true.
But I also believe it is only one kind of happiness, and there are many more forms of happiness to explore.

What makes you happy?

And the priest also gave out a little homework challenge to the youths of the congregation: do something this week to make your parents smile.

Sadly for our parish, he is going back to Africa to preach there. Although he has been here only for a short time, his homilies will be remembered by many. I pray that he will change lives and help many of those in need there at Africa.

God Bless him and all of you readers ✞

RE: What Is Love: The Red String of Fate

"An invisible red threat connects those who are destined to meet,
regardless of time, place, or circumstance.
The thread may stretch or tangle,
but it will never break."
- Ancient Chinese Belief

The red string of fate.
An Eastern Asian belief originating from a Chinese and Japanese legend.
According to the Japanese legend/myth, the gods tie this red string of fate around the little finger of two individuals who are to meet someday in their life, hence the use of the word 'fate'.
These two individuals who are connected by the red string are destined lovers, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. In the Western world, we call this 'soulmates'. 

RE: What Is Love: Sternberg's Triangle of Love

Here is another response/branch off of the original What Is Love? post - I guess I shall officially call it the "What Is Love" series.

This time, I am presenting the more educational, professional side of the question that I found is very effective in understanding 'love'.

Robert Sternberg's Triangle Theory of Love.

Love consists of:

1. Passion: drive that lead to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation & related phenomena
2. Intimacy: feelings of closeness, connectedness & bondedness in loving relationships
3. Commitment: decision that one loves someone else; commitment to maintain that love

Kind of Love	Passion	Intimacy	Commitment
Non-Love	-	-	-
Liking	-	+	-
Infatuation	+	-	-
Empty Love	-	-	+
Romantic Love	+	+	-
Compassionate Love	-	+	+
Fatuous Love	+	-	+
Consummate Love	+	+	+

A diagram that might be easier to understand & provide some visuals for the visual learners.

When asked the question "What Is Love?", one of my classmates answered: "Taking chances and trusting another person." Relationships are all about trust as well as the three defined above. 

Here are just a couple of short facts:

• Phenylethylamine: chemical found in brain believed to be responsible for physical symptoms of "falling in love"; also found in chocolate
• True love: romantic love - physical attraction, shared values & goals, compatible personality
• Loving relationship fosters self-esteem
• John Lee: romantic love serves as a psychological need in humans - cravings to be loved
• Free-choice love critics: love can blind us to the faults of our future mate; we tend to fall in love with others, not necessarily for who they truly are, but for who we want them to be

Be expecting more posts from this series in the near future!
Minti~

RE: What Is Love: Everyone Wants an Answer

On my way to school this morning, I was listening to the radio and the thing that really caught my attention was the Google list of most searched items for 2012. Of course, PSY and Gangnam Style was a topper, as well as Justin Bieber and One Direction - these were a given already.
But what I didn't expect was that the question that was most searched on Google this year was, in fact:

What Is Love?

This really caught my attention because...who knew that so many people are trying to find out what love really means?
This proves that the topic of love really seems to be the most unclear of them all, everybody wanting to understand it because it is human nature to want to be loved, and to know if what they, or others, feel is real love and not just one's own perception of the term.

Please feel free to leave your thoughts on What Is Love by commenting on any of the posts from the series!


~Minti~

RE: What Is Love: 6 Types of Love

Relating to my previous blog post, here's a little something I dug up.

Hope this helps explain things as well as possibly clear up some of the things I said in that previous post.
Minti out~