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MYSTERY, LOVE, and THE DON.
yesterday, had a long chat with a friend from balt. one interesting thing she said was this (or something to this effect):
(I hope you don't mind my sharing this, J. If you do, I'll take it off later...)
"I think guys should ask the girl out before they get too close and lose the mystery."
WHAT?!!! (I hope you are reading this, J)
NO way!! how can it be a bad thing to get close?
it's true, for a lot of couples, the shyness, the search for discovery, the mystery is gone after 5, 10 yrs. it doesn't HAVE to be that way. I think the mystery should be there, for the entire marriage.
the minute one thinks, oh, I know this person, my mate, that's when i think the mystery, the romance might be over. then, it becomes purely friendship and/or partnership. not that those things are bad. please don't misunderstand me. there have been lot worse paths in marriage than friendship/partnership. my parents, i think, are on that path. but all of us 20 somethings all hope for lifelong romance, no? from reading blogs late into the night, that is my general understanding. that ideal is in all of us, and none of us would want anything less. after all, this is THE ONE we are talking about...
i think the romance, the mystery will continue to flow, if both parties recognize a crucial fact: the other person is just as complex as you are. have you been the same you entire life? (if so, i'm sorry...) for most of us, the answer is NO! we have all gone through lots of changes, in appearance, in theology, in philosophy, in athleticism, everything. we are constantly in change. i'm sure many of us, especially those who have finished college, in the process of graduating, or even the freshman who are finishing their first year, we can all look back and say, my, how i've changed! hopefully for the better, and perhaps not. but those changes were not all predictable, right? on some issues, you acted and thought differently from your norm.
if we can recognize that (s)he will not be the same as when you slipped that ring on her, that each day together is a fresh new bag of pepperidge farm cookies (mmmm....), full of new experiences together, THEN, i believe the mystery will continue to flow.
Was this too secular a view for you?
How about this one? God is constantly at work in us. sometimes, that means molding and shaping like clay (you are the potter...i am the clay...). sometimes, we are too hard, and He must crack and break us, grind us back to the elements, pour living water into us, and form us anew. no one said it wouldn't hurt.
during college, Joe and I got into several big arguments. (I TOLD you God used Joe to work in me. Whether he realizes it or not, directly or indirectly, he's had a big part in influencing me. i hope you don't mind, Joe. :)
joe and i spent a lot of time together. that was cool. we have been friends for a long time, since 7th grade, maybe. we went to summer school together, high school together, and even college together. if medical schools allowed us to choose, perhaps we would have gone to medical school together. we are as close as friends can be.
sometime during senior year, we had hung out so much, we had hashed out our ideas so much, that joe started to answer people's questions FOR ME. example:
person: Jacob, are you really not going to have children?
Joe: no, Jacob thinks that it would be better to have lots of fun with his wife.
ok, ok. i actually DID say that to him, several times, and i believed that. but the thing was, the question was directed towards ME, not him. moreover, at some point, the answer he gave WAS NOT TRUE, because I HAD CHANGED.
so we had quite a tiff, and we needed some time off from each other.(doesn't this sound like a married couple's spat? this has been mentioned to me more than once. again, joe teaches me much about life, so i won't make his type of mistake in real marriage...haha)
after some time, we apologized, etc, and talked things out. once the communication lines were open, we were ok. some months ago, we spoke on this topic again. i saved the IM chat, mostly because it held ideas that i realized RIGHT then, and did not want to lose. (i hope you don't mind, bro)
***********
THE IM CHAT: Concerning a confrontation from that past that nearly broke the friendship
you feel like you know me so well
but you've only gotten to know me well at a certain point in my life
the way i am is not the way i always was
nor is the way i am the way i will always be
you have an image of me in your mind, an image you know and are fond of, maybe, like a parent is indulgently fond of a troublesome child
to me, that image was a cage
giving me no room
to grow
to change
to have different thoughts
that drove me crazy
when you spoke for me, or assumed that i'll always think one way,
you were raising bars around me
jc: that's because you were ashamed of how you are, what you did...
you don't know what i was like before you met me!
a compulsive liar, a cheat, and worse, worse than the sins you know of now but I changed a little in jh, when you didn't know me that well
and i changed, too, in hs when you had you're first real impression of me and though i changed in college, you also changed with me,
and didn’t see the change
to you, i was always a certain way
but it is only a stage of my life you really knew
jc: I’m not arguing with you that I know you really well... I doubt you know yourself well...
that's why you should never speak for me
jc: it is just our way of telling other people that you are a close friend
even i need to think about what i'm going to say or do, because I do not know myself well
they KNOW we are close friends. we don't need to speak FOR each other to prove that
jc: its too bad you feel that way...
jc: I don't do it anymore...
i know
i appreciate it, the change in you, now
but you were crowding me back then...
i felt like i had no identity
no thoughts of my own
or i had thoughts that were so predictable
so "jacob-like…."
jc: they were quite predictable...
jc: at least for the time that I knew you...
if you look back
we've changed a LOT
jc: but I don't pretend to know you now...
i'm not saying you don't know me
you DO know me
as much as a human can, anyway
jc: I never thought you did not change...
instead of assuming we will always have our sins
we can hope that we will change
it's real depressing when people assume that you will always be sinful in the same way
it's like there's no hope
that bothers me
a good friend will ALWAYS keep room for growth
that you will become a good person, a better person
with great dreams and hopes
he will believe that you can change,
change to be more Christ-like
jc: as long as all my good friends know who I am, who cares about other people...
but that's what's depressing
when your best friends have no hope for you
***** (ok, i'm sure that was pretty confusing, but IM chats tend to be, even if you are the person in them...)
as always, my relationship with joe taught me about relationships. and that is my big conviction: that we need to give each other room to grow, and to keep tuned for the wonderful surprises and developments that will come.
one of my favorite movies is Don Juan de Marco. remember that? it was a silly movie with Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando. silly, yes, but I learned a LOT from that movie.
In short, it was about a man (Depp) who believed he was the great Don Juan, the great lover. He goes on a rampage, seducing woman successfully. ok, so that part was hilarious. but how did Depp seduce them? by seeing everything about the woman, the wonderful qualities and the not-so-good qualities, but loving and appreciating those qualities in her. women, it appears from the movie, are starving for that understanding of the woman as a whole, and still be appreciated and desired.
here is an exerpt from the movie:
Don Juan: By seeing beyond what is visible to the eye. Now there are those, of course, who do not share my perceptions, it is true. When I say that all my woman are dazzling beauties, they object. The nose of this one is too large; the hips of another, they are too wide; perhaps the breasts of a third, they are too small. But I see these women for how they truly are...glorious, radiant, spectacular, and perfect...because I am not limited by my eyesight. Women react to me in the way they do, Don Octavio, because they sense that I search out the beauty that lies within until it overwhelms everything else. And then they cannot avoid their desire, to release that beauty and envelope me in it. So, to answer your question, I see as clear as day that this great edifice in which we find ourselves is your villa. It is your home and as for you, Don Octavio DeFlores, you are a great lover like myself, even though you may have lost your way and your accent. Shall I continue?
(hilarious. it is the best monologue of all time...)
ok, silly, that's not the lesson i was talking about (although this point was really, really interesting, and something to ponder...). the real lesson for me was what happened to marlon brando.
brando, you see, was the psychiatrist who was assigned to Don Juan (Depp). at first, he tries to show Don Juan how flawed his experience is, how he is NOT Don Juan, and is, in fact, a little crazy.
As Brando interacts with Don Juan, as he hears of how Depp tries to SEE, really SEE into them, to understand the woman and her complexity, Brando begins to change.
His eyes open bit by bit. He notices how lovely his wife is when she sits by the window, reading. he sees how sheets of her hair glide and fall with a movement of her head. he realizes how much she loves him. one day, he brings her flowers, and the surprise on her face was really something. after all, brando and his wife are well into their geriatric ages, and have long since settled into a friendship/partnership. but it was simply shocking to see how some simple flowers, a little effort from the man, brings such absolute joy to the woman. a revelation, i tell you.
and then, the real bomb:
brando looks at his wife with a twinkle. just contemplating what she is to him, and then tells her, "you know, i ask you to follow me in my work, and you do, with no complaints. but what did you want to be before you met me?"
she is stunned, and laughs merrily. but during her laughter, tears start flowing. "you know, in the 40 years that we've been married, you have never asked me that once." (the above is not entirely accurate, but it was something like that...)
and man, that knocked me out. right then, while watching the movie, i vowed that it would never be about just my career, and my wife would not follow behind me, nevermind that korean culture teaches otherwise. and i will do my upmost to keep the mystery and the romance.
i will end my tiresome soapbox speech now.
yakob at 1:26 PM
-----------------
yesterday, had a long chat with a friend from balt. one interesting thing she said was this (or something to this effect):
(I hope you don't mind my sharing this, J. If you do, I'll take it off later...)
"I think guys should ask the girl out before they get too close and lose the mystery."
WHAT?!!! (I hope you are reading this, J)
NO way!! how can it be a bad thing to get close?
it's true, for a lot of couples, the shyness, the search for discovery, the mystery is gone after 5, 10 yrs. it doesn't HAVE to be that way. I think the mystery should be there, for the entire marriage.
the minute one thinks, oh, I know this person, my mate, that's when i think the mystery, the romance might be over. then, it becomes purely friendship and/or partnership. not that those things are bad. please don't misunderstand me. there have been lot worse paths in marriage than friendship/partnership. my parents, i think, are on that path. but all of us 20 somethings all hope for lifelong romance, no? from reading blogs late into the night, that is my general understanding. that ideal is in all of us, and none of us would want anything less. after all, this is THE ONE we are talking about...
i think the romance, the mystery will continue to flow, if both parties recognize a crucial fact: the other person is just as complex as you are. have you been the same you entire life? (if so, i'm sorry...) for most of us, the answer is NO! we have all gone through lots of changes, in appearance, in theology, in philosophy, in athleticism, everything. we are constantly in change. i'm sure many of us, especially those who have finished college, in the process of graduating, or even the freshman who are finishing their first year, we can all look back and say, my, how i've changed! hopefully for the better, and perhaps not. but those changes were not all predictable, right? on some issues, you acted and thought differently from your norm.
if we can recognize that (s)he will not be the same as when you slipped that ring on her, that each day together is a fresh new bag of pepperidge farm cookies (mmmm....), full of new experiences together, THEN, i believe the mystery will continue to flow.
Was this too secular a view for you?
How about this one? God is constantly at work in us. sometimes, that means molding and shaping like clay (you are the potter...i am the clay...). sometimes, we are too hard, and He must crack and break us, grind us back to the elements, pour living water into us, and form us anew. no one said it wouldn't hurt.
during college, Joe and I got into several big arguments. (I TOLD you God used Joe to work in me. Whether he realizes it or not, directly or indirectly, he's had a big part in influencing me. i hope you don't mind, Joe. :)
joe and i spent a lot of time together. that was cool. we have been friends for a long time, since 7th grade, maybe. we went to summer school together, high school together, and even college together. if medical schools allowed us to choose, perhaps we would have gone to medical school together. we are as close as friends can be.
sometime during senior year, we had hung out so much, we had hashed out our ideas so much, that joe started to answer people's questions FOR ME. example:
person: Jacob, are you really not going to have children?
Joe: no, Jacob thinks that it would be better to have lots of fun with his wife.
ok, ok. i actually DID say that to him, several times, and i believed that. but the thing was, the question was directed towards ME, not him. moreover, at some point, the answer he gave WAS NOT TRUE, because I HAD CHANGED.
so we had quite a tiff, and we needed some time off from each other.(doesn't this sound like a married couple's spat? this has been mentioned to me more than once. again, joe teaches me much about life, so i won't make his type of mistake in real marriage...haha)
after some time, we apologized, etc, and talked things out. once the communication lines were open, we were ok. some months ago, we spoke on this topic again. i saved the IM chat, mostly because it held ideas that i realized RIGHT then, and did not want to lose. (i hope you don't mind, bro)
***********
THE IM CHAT: Concerning a confrontation from that past that nearly broke the friendship
you feel like you know me so well
but you've only gotten to know me well at a certain point in my life
the way i am is not the way i always was
nor is the way i am the way i will always be
you have an image of me in your mind, an image you know and are fond of, maybe, like a parent is indulgently fond of a troublesome child
to me, that image was a cage
giving me no room
to grow
to change
to have different thoughts
that drove me crazy
when you spoke for me, or assumed that i'll always think one way,
you were raising bars around me
jc: that's because you were ashamed of how you are, what you did...
you don't know what i was like before you met me!
a compulsive liar, a cheat, and worse, worse than the sins you know of now but I changed a little in jh, when you didn't know me that well
and i changed, too, in hs when you had you're first real impression of me and though i changed in college, you also changed with me,
and didn’t see the change
to you, i was always a certain way
but it is only a stage of my life you really knew
jc: I’m not arguing with you that I know you really well... I doubt you know yourself well...
that's why you should never speak for me
jc: it is just our way of telling other people that you are a close friend
even i need to think about what i'm going to say or do, because I do not know myself well
they KNOW we are close friends. we don't need to speak FOR each other to prove that
jc: its too bad you feel that way...
jc: I don't do it anymore...
i know
i appreciate it, the change in you, now
but you were crowding me back then...
i felt like i had no identity
no thoughts of my own
or i had thoughts that were so predictable
so "jacob-like…."
jc: they were quite predictable...
jc: at least for the time that I knew you...
if you look back
we've changed a LOT
jc: but I don't pretend to know you now...
i'm not saying you don't know me
you DO know me
as much as a human can, anyway
jc: I never thought you did not change...
instead of assuming we will always have our sins
we can hope that we will change
it's real depressing when people assume that you will always be sinful in the same way
it's like there's no hope
that bothers me
a good friend will ALWAYS keep room for growth
that you will become a good person, a better person
with great dreams and hopes
he will believe that you can change,
change to be more Christ-like
jc: as long as all my good friends know who I am, who cares about other people...
but that's what's depressing
when your best friends have no hope for you
***** (ok, i'm sure that was pretty confusing, but IM chats tend to be, even if you are the person in them...)
as always, my relationship with joe taught me about relationships. and that is my big conviction: that we need to give each other room to grow, and to keep tuned for the wonderful surprises and developments that will come.
one of my favorite movies is Don Juan de Marco. remember that? it was a silly movie with Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando. silly, yes, but I learned a LOT from that movie.
In short, it was about a man (Depp) who believed he was the great Don Juan, the great lover. He goes on a rampage, seducing woman successfully. ok, so that part was hilarious. but how did Depp seduce them? by seeing everything about the woman, the wonderful qualities and the not-so-good qualities, but loving and appreciating those qualities in her. women, it appears from the movie, are starving for that understanding of the woman as a whole, and still be appreciated and desired.
here is an exerpt from the movie:
Don Juan: By seeing beyond what is visible to the eye. Now there are those, of course, who do not share my perceptions, it is true. When I say that all my woman are dazzling beauties, they object. The nose of this one is too large; the hips of another, they are too wide; perhaps the breasts of a third, they are too small. But I see these women for how they truly are...glorious, radiant, spectacular, and perfect...because I am not limited by my eyesight. Women react to me in the way they do, Don Octavio, because they sense that I search out the beauty that lies within until it overwhelms everything else. And then they cannot avoid their desire, to release that beauty and envelope me in it. So, to answer your question, I see as clear as day that this great edifice in which we find ourselves is your villa. It is your home and as for you, Don Octavio DeFlores, you are a great lover like myself, even though you may have lost your way and your accent. Shall I continue?
(hilarious. it is the best monologue of all time...)
ok, silly, that's not the lesson i was talking about (although this point was really, really interesting, and something to ponder...). the real lesson for me was what happened to marlon brando.
brando, you see, was the psychiatrist who was assigned to Don Juan (Depp). at first, he tries to show Don Juan how flawed his experience is, how he is NOT Don Juan, and is, in fact, a little crazy.
As Brando interacts with Don Juan, as he hears of how Depp tries to SEE, really SEE into them, to understand the woman and her complexity, Brando begins to change.
His eyes open bit by bit. He notices how lovely his wife is when she sits by the window, reading. he sees how sheets of her hair glide and fall with a movement of her head. he realizes how much she loves him. one day, he brings her flowers, and the surprise on her face was really something. after all, brando and his wife are well into their geriatric ages, and have long since settled into a friendship/partnership. but it was simply shocking to see how some simple flowers, a little effort from the man, brings such absolute joy to the woman. a revelation, i tell you.
and then, the real bomb:
brando looks at his wife with a twinkle. just contemplating what she is to him, and then tells her, "you know, i ask you to follow me in my work, and you do, with no complaints. but what did you want to be before you met me?"
she is stunned, and laughs merrily. but during her laughter, tears start flowing. "you know, in the 40 years that we've been married, you have never asked me that once." (the above is not entirely accurate, but it was something like that...)
and man, that knocked me out. right then, while watching the movie, i vowed that it would never be about just my career, and my wife would not follow behind me, nevermind that korean culture teaches otherwise. and i will do my upmost to keep the mystery and the romance.
i will end my tiresome soapbox speech now.
yakob at 1:26 PM