SEC ANTI-LOVE CLUB. Home of the love-haters

The question of "what is love?" reminds me of the poem I had encountered recently. It is called...
[Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink] - Edna St. Vincent Millay (1931)
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution''s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
And I believe in this poem to be true. "Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink." Love is not the only thing that human beings can depend on *****rvive in this world alone. Yet, there are times, we, the fragile beings - in some ways, need love to feel comfortable and safe in this corrupted and unsafe environment. This triggers me the notion of why do people want to be safe. Does safety provide us a sense of protection and a sense of belonging?
I think it is a false concept to define love as only the love between couples. Love can be among parents and children, friends and friends, nations and nations, etc. Therefore, love is something rather an unsolved conquest in finding what love is really is. Each person has a different view on how to define love. Here, I will offer my look on love from the perspective of a lover who has been in love. Having been experiencing love from my first love to now has given me a brief look at what love is. I think I have been taking love so seriously so that when I lost it, it left me a big scar. It takes time for me to heal and erase it. Suddenly, that painful memory has coming back to me once again. The memory that I''ve been trying to dig deep inside so that it won''t appear again, that is one of the reasons why I am going towards in an anti-love direction. I can''t give you a straight answer because I''d like to keep this memory to myself, to accept it as my past and to be able to fight it. Likewise, I have my own reason to be an anti-love. Even though, there are times I do need love to be able to feel safe again, but I don''t want to be too safe in order to feel protection right at this moment. I want myself to be freely as the way I want my definition of love to be, and it''s personal thing for me to keep. Am I just contradicting myself here?
Somehow, I think everybody has different opinion about love. We look at anti-love from different perspective. Each of us has a right to say we are anti-love or not. Therefore, it''s appropriate for us to have our own opinion. You don''t have or need to agree with me and vice versa. Your experience might give you a pleasant memory about love. I do agree with you that I, just a normal person, do need love in some ways, but I am not going to say that I do need it 100%.
tmhung, don''t even say the thing that you''re not sure of. Don''t offer your opinion about us being "shallow." How do you know that I''m shallow enough to be here talking about some nonsense stuffs? I guess only running after love doesn''t mean that you''ve truly experienced love yet, so don''t even judge a book by its cover. You have the right to state your opinion, but pls don''t go around and judging about others.

@ bro TaoLao : if you asked me this question couple years ago, I would give you a detailed 3-page essay to define what love is. My heart has been frozen for so long, other than the definition from the dictionary, I really don''t know what to tell you.
@Trang : great piece of writing Trang. This should be "SEC Essay of the Week."
Hey guys, we welcome your opinions even though you want to oppose our club. But please try to make your points appealing and reasonable. Accusing us with a bunch of nonsense would not impress anyone here. Explain to us why you think "couple love" is great and maybe you might change our point of views.
Cheers,

When I asked ''''What is love '''', I expected a philosophical answer.Why philosophy? Asking such kind of question is a technique of Socrate (The Confucious of the Greek and the western world ). So you are expected to think about what you said, what you really meaned. That ''''s so-called conceptual analysis. After going through such thinking process, everything will be clearer.
For example, what is love? What do we mean by love?
1) Love as an idea, an ideal concept about relationship between a man and a woman
Love is perfect. Love is romantic, uncon***ional,sweet,happy etc. Love is everything good. When a person say '''' I am anti-love'''' and love is understood in those senses. He is wrong from beginning. Why? Because if love is as an ideal nothing for you to against. No love between human beings, except love between God and human beings.
2) Love as an activity/relationship between a man and a woman
In this sense, love is not perfect because human beings are not perfect. Love is not eternal (people usually betrays each other). So when a person say '''' I am anti-love'''', love should be understood in this sense, love as an activity.
By saying ''''I am anti-love'''', that person mean'''' I do not participate in that activity''''. Or he turns a redlight on, stop! please do not touch me, I won''''t join any love activity.So what? Maybe that person was hurt in love game before, consequently do not dare /be courage to play again. Maybe that person just does not believe in love (actual reality or love as activity is totally different from love as an ideal), he denies to play. In the name of freedom, people could say '''' we are anti-love'''' because they have that right.
3) Love in Vietnamese
As mentioned love as a concept, let ''s observe what Vietnamese people mean by love in their sayings:
- Anh yêu em cho tới lúc sông cạn đá mòn---> love is eternal
- Em yêu rất là ngọt ngào--> love is sweet
- Không có gì ngăn cách tình yêu của chúng mình---> love is unity
- Anh khát khao em---> love is desirable
....
Help me find more. Frankly speaking, I am not very sure how VN people talk flying words to their lovers. (prefer English because I could speak better) . I wonder whether VN people love their partner less than Western people
Được tao_lao sửa chữa / chuyển vào 20:29 ngày 07/11/2006

Let''s listen to Christmas songs. They really brighten our mind and and wipe our pessimistic thoughts out. I love them so much.
This is for you, King and for someone unhappy
http://www.freewebtown.com/phuongdi/Have%20Yourself%20A%20Merry%20Little%20Christmas.wma
Remember, have yourself a merry Christmas !
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Hihi, I love this song too sis Dimi. But is it a little bit too early to listen to Christmas music now? I mean, we still have almost 2 months left til the big holiday. By the way, I am not unhappy. I like the "Love Hurts" song because it is so sad. But that does not mean I''''m sad. You don" think a simple song would have any affection to his heartless soul, would you?
Được king67 sửa chữa / chuyển vào 04:50 ngày 08/11/2006

hihi...buồn thì sư phụ nghe nhạc Trịnh,nhạc tiền chiến,nhạc vàng,nhạc thất tình...những thứ âm nhạc mà khi ta thấy down,nghe vô thấy rất hay... My favourist: Riêng 1 góc trời, bản tình cuối (Ngô Thuỵ Miên), 10 bài ko tên, đêm say (Vũ Thanh An), hai năm tình lận đận, em hiền như masour, đêm nhớ về SG, diễm xưa, 1 cõi đi về, niệm khúc cuối... (mỏi tay quá, kể hổng nỗi) Bao giờ sư phụ về SG vô mấy phòng trà, có nến lung linh, hoa hồng lãng mạn ngồi nghe mấy bài nhạc trữ tình lãng mạn nhâm nhi cafe hay trà nóng (trong 1 đêm mưa tầm tả). Nếu như ngồi bên người đẹp nữa thì....mà người đẹp dốt nhạc thì ko có gì chán bằng. However, now I do not like such kind of music any more.

I didn?Tt expect to answer from a philosophical perspective when I read your question. I simply thought that you were just asking from a broader view (what I think personally rather than from this point of view). For me, I am not used understand things from the philosophical perspective because I just do not get it (I guess I need someone to explain more to me); although, I had taken a philosophy class before, but I don?Tt think I get much out of it. I agree with you on the point that we are all expected to think before we say anything or about what we said. However, don?Tt you think that will (always) be the case? I do not think so. There are times when we don?Tt even understand deeply about ourselves. That?Ts why we (human beings) make mistakes, not just only once.
1. From this point of view, I also believe in love as an ideal concept. However, ?olove is romantic? does not buy me. Do you think there is a romantic aspect in the love between God and human beings? Since romantic is not defined only as ?olãng mạn,? it also defines as ?oảo tưởng, viễn vông.?
I don?Tt see any of this aspect in the love between God and human beings. Does romance exist in the love between God and human beings? If romantic is defined as ?oảo tưởng,? then I don?Tt think I can stick with it because if love is romantice = love is ?oảo tưởng,? I think it is way out of the reality realm to think love this way if you said love is romantic between God and human beings. ?oLove is ảo tưởng? is also the same as ?olove is for only the existence of our dreams.? Then would that be too far away to reach?
2. From this perspective, love as an activity/game. As you said, human beings are not perfect (yes, it?Ts true). Therefore, we have taken love too far so that we make mistakes in finding ways to hurt ourselves. If we knew earlier love as a game, then I don?Tt think we will take this matter so seriously. We are not that foolish/silly to hurt ourselves to play the game of love. We might take the wrong direction of love in the love game, but I don?Tt think many people would know how to consider their love as the game of love on the first hand. It is not that we are not daring to practice love, but we, at this moment, need to take a break from this game.
Moreover, if love as an activity between lovers then why didn?Tt we practice it when we were just born into this world? Why do we have to reach to certain age in order to be a part of this activity? Thus, I believe ?oactivity? is for anybody to practice. Why not the babies? Why only adults can practice this activity? We would say ?obecause it is against the nature.? If it?Ts against the nature for babies to practice this activity, then why is it against nature for us to be anti-love? Who made all these rules? Is it too vague?
Taolao, I would appreciate you much if you could open my eyes to this aspect. I should take my love game on an ideal concept direction so that I won?Tt be trapped in this game once again. I didn?Tt say that I would be an anti-love forever, it?Ts just a word for me to use to heal my wound. I would say that ?otình yêu là một con dao hai lưỡi.? When it needs/wants to caress us ?" its love as an ideal. Unfortunately, when it doesn?Tt need/want to caress us anymore ?" its love as an activity/game.

Hi Trang,
You went in words/vocabulary meaning so far that my intention was missed. I will verify them to make sure I would be understood precisely.
From conceptual analysis or question technique of Socrate, I raised a question : what is love? What do people mean by love? I came out with 2 meanings: love as an ideal/concept and love as activity. The former should be understood in Plato ''s theory of form (idea) sense ( if you do not undertand this, search internet or ask me to elaborate further.) The latter should be understood as something opposite to the former (ideal), love as reality.

hì...cái hội này coi vậy mà ế dữ quá sư phụ ơi,chỉ chiêu mộ được em giáo nhỏ với chị em bạn Trang. Chắc nên đổi lại là hội ca ngợi tình yêu thì hoạ may bà con vô đông hơn

Thấy bro King bức xúc quá, King (vua) mà cũng có lúc lâm vào hoàn cảnh này à? May mà mình chưa yêu lần nào he he he he........Vậy tớ suggest King đổi nick đi, new nickname Đã_Tin_Yêu_và_Thất_ Vọng hợp với hòan cảnh của King đấy
in that night..........in the dark.........
Được Unforgetable_Memories sửa chữa / chuyển vào 01:02 ngày 12/11/2006