Today I watched The Lives of Others / Das Leben der Anderen (2006). The other day I've watched Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015). Both films explore the theme of love. 

I've been inquiring about the idea of love for quite some time now. It baffles me how people choose to love what they love the way they love.

Yeah. 

Tom Stoppard who wrote the play "The Real Thing" in 1982 said the greatest definition of love is, in an excerpt, "...knowledge of each other, not of the flesh but through the flesh, knowledge of self, the real him, the real her, in extremis, the mask slipped from the face..." (via BrainPickings.org)

True. Not everyone will know the real you, inside and out. But not everyone who knows the real you truly loves you. Perhaps it's a form of admiration? I don't know, it's fluid.

Generally from the people I've talked to, they prefer to think of love in a form of marriage. It's described as an ultimatum, the final destination. Through marriage, it'll bring more love to the picture, as if it doubles the love already available. I like the fact that a colleague of mine gave an interesting insight when it comes to marriage. "It's a form of survivorship. Sure, you'll love at first but when the love fades (because the beginning is always interesting), you'll need to fall back to the survivorship mode to keep the love around. It's hard work consisting of tremendous efforts - understanding, patience, care, balance. It's difficult and time consuming, but maybe you'll get to it."

Maybe? She has been married for 4 years now. 

I would rather think marriage as a ritual that legitimise the act of love. It's just the beginning.

To me, a self-appreciated unrequited love is, although rather sad, portrays the greatest form of love existing on earth. Its complex form addresses the weakness of humanity, where we tend to easily forget love and would prefer to remember pain in larger part of our life. And by the time we notice the love we had received or given all the years, we would begin to perceive the real meaning of love - why it happened, why we deserve it to happen. When unrequited love is self-appreciated, it is benefitting in two-sided way because when love is loved freely and peacefully, the pain from the unreturned love leading to longingness and unintendedness is better understood. Its unselfish nature is nonetheless a grappling concept for the brain to perceive, can make the heart grows tender over time.

This is how I would like to think what love is.

It's extremely important to understand love, instead of just giving or receiving it blindly, because deep understanding of the definition will unfold the meaning of other abstract ideas including sacrifice, empathy, sincerity, kindness, freedom, solitude, etc. Key to the warmness and peace of heart.

(this is a big and tough topic to talk about - ongoing thought process and to be continued)