The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind. Especially when we do not know what is going on,” says Waymond Wang from the film Everything Everywhere All at Once directed by Daniel Kwan. Watching the film and listening to Wang’s quote make us think that we can give love and care for others endlessly.
However, once we walk out of the cinema and come back to the real world, we will act in a completely different manner. The world is not a happy pink “Barbie” princess world. It is also not like Ken’s “Mojo Dojo Casa House,” a reference from the film Barbie directed by Greta Gerwig. Being kind to others is much harder than we think. It is becoming harder and harder to do, especially in today’s complicated modern society.
The whole concept surrounding us easily and quickly makes us exhausted. What makes it so difficult for us to just be kind to others and spread love to each other - even when deep down in our minds, we all wish to believe in the power of love?
Although love never has been a minor issue in human society, now is the very time we should all believe in and focus on the power of love. With all that matters, love was, is, and will last forever within our hearts no matter what.
What Happened to Us?
It might be silly to ask this kind of question, but have you ever experienced losing someone you really loved? Or have you ever once believed that someone would be the great love, “the one,” but your relationship ended? If you have answered “yes,” congratulations! Because you are not the only one. We all have been there and even if you have not experienced it yet, you will one day. Thus, this column will become both your guideline and review note about love, at the same time.
To initiate the guideline as well as the review note, one more question: “What is your ‘MBTI?’” The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is also known as one’s personality trait, is a widely used psychological self-test. Let’s take for example, INFP (introvert, thinking, feeling and perception). When you think about a person of this MBTI, you might come up with some keywords like shy, imaginative, and very emotional. Maybe it is true, but by judging on this information alone, you just lost the opportunity to get to know the real person under those four letters. This is not to say that we should shun and blame popular trait tests such as MBTI. This is just to emphasize how relationships are all about the journey and process.
Society and everything surrounding us is created, used, and demolished so fast that we also have the tendency to be in a hurry as well. However, when we meet someone new, and start to love, taking the time to acknowledge our counterpart’s characteristics is and will be precious memories. They are the steps and the process to fall in true love.
“It is the journey, to begin with, that you and I will continue under the name of love. Here is the problem of many people in our modern society - they skip this process, even avoid, and deny it. Love is like a deep sea. It is ourselves that decides what to put in the deep down.” said Kim Hyun-sik, a Professor in the Department of History at Hanyang University (HYU).
Although it is our tendency and characteristics that have changed, it is also the society to be blamed for. “Blame” may be a strong word towards society. In fact, we are all intertwined; hence, it may be impossible to just find a single reason and place the burden there. Let’s take a look at an example.
A simple and innocent act, such as buying a banana from a supermarket, may be the reason one will be unable to enter heaven’s doors, one day. How does this happen? One person’s behavior is affected by so many people and also affects many others, as well. The banana that one bought might have been grown in a farm where the farmer exploited his workers, and the market that trafficked it might have been a company full of unspeakable corruption. This type of social dilemma is depicted in the Netflix Series, The Good Place. Then, what are some of the reallife elements that make us deny ourselves and hesitate to fall in love with another being?
Let’s Dig in a Little Bit Deeper!
Here, there are relationship issues, like identity crisis and denial. An identity crisis happens when your ideals and reality conflict. Denial happens when you have to decide or balance between those gaps. Balance is an optimal solution for these situations but sometimes it seems more like a compromise than a clear resolution. However, compromising with the world is not cowardly behavior. In fact, we must compromise as a civilized person because all beings want to be their own selves.
Especially these days, we have an increased tendency to protect ourselves and prevent others from coming to change our identities. However, “Humankind’s reason for being comes from connection,” said Kim. “It is impossible for us to be completely separated from each other. Reasons to live eventually come from love for others,” he added. Hence, when we start a relationship with someone who has lived a completely different life from us, comes the clash!
The superficial crisis and conflict with them, as well as inner struggles, will happen. That is when we need to compromise with one another. For example, people in their early twenties may often experience these kinds of identity crises; There is an urge to want to become physically attractive.
Hence, they go to great lengths to change their appearance but still deep down inside wish to meet someone who would truly see them. Youths seek people that might acknowledge their inner beauty, but also feel frustrated about their own behaviors of trying so hard to become a figure who is physically admirable.
“I do not think the balance of loving myself and respecting others comes easily,” said Yu Hyedam, a Feminist and Author of the book, A Journal to De-Marriage.
She added, “It is impossible to survive without any compromise with the system that has deeply penetrated the world. We are like giant underwater fish. At the bottom of the deep ocean, it is difficult to imagine that the system, the one that has surrounded us since we were very little, is the problem. For example, if I were to place myself like a paper doll cut from a piece of paper on the big picture of the history of women’s oppression, I would be smaller than a single pixel. The changes that we individuals can make alone will not be much bigger than that. But the painting does not make us powerless, because we know we have a choice of how to place ourselves in that big picture, at least.”
Then, how can we truly prioritize ourselves and still love and care for somebody we love at the same time?
It Comes With Pain but With All that Matters, I Still Choose to “Love”
“Please do not be worn away by complex contradictions,” said Mun Su-hyun, a Professor in the Department of History at HYU. You can become anyone anywhere just like in the film, Everything Everywhere All at Once. This is not merely a film. We actually do exist as so many versions of ourselves.
We are social beings. What this means is that when we go to school, we are students; when we are at the market or a restaurant, we are a customer; and we are also somebody’s girlfriend, boyfriend, daughter, or son; and most importantly, someone who always deserves to be loved and to give love.
“It is not your fault that you are told to behave as society wants. Rather, do not feel frustrated by the fact that we cannot change the small or big inconveniences that have penetrated society. Life will always be ridiculous, but we still need to enjoy our lives and do what we have been doing since the beginning,” Mun added.
Relationships and love are not only about the couple but also about oneself. We all have so many different versions and contradictions inside ourselves. Even if our love for one another or even for ourselves shatters one day, it lasts as a memory to be cherished.
Of course, love in its ending phase may tear us apart. But even so, to make good memories, the number one thing to do is to cherish oneself. We must focus on building relationships with ourselves. Become a “self-respecting being.”
This column comes to an end with a quote: the last lines of the book, The Little Prince by Antoine de SaintExupery. “This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as the one on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to engrave it in your memory. It is here where the little prince appeared on Earth and disappeared. Look at it carefully so that you will be able to recognize it in case you travel someday to an African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry to leave. Wait for a moment, exactly under this star. Then, if a little man who laughs, who has golden hair, and who refuses to answer questions appears, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.”