Speech: A requirement 2

In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a fairy king who wanted to play a trick on his queen squeezed the juice of a magic flower into her sleeping eyes so that she would fall in love with the first person she saw. Upon awakening the queen saw a man who turned out to be an actor wearing a donkey’s head.

This tale is one source of the old saying: “Love is blind”.

There are so many definitions about love and all these have originated from tales or real life events. They range from corny to the corniest. But in truth, there is no actual definition of love. To begin with the broad scientific view on love, I’d like to show a short video on where this emotion actually comes from. Technically speaking then love does not come from the heart. It is an emotion that comes from a certain part of the brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is located below the thalamus and just above the brain stem. To make its long definition short, it is the gland that is responsible for your feelings. Examples of which could be the feeling of being over fatigued, hunger, feeling to cold or too hot. In terms of psychology, focusing on Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, there are three elements of love namely:

Intimacy – the emotional element which leads to connection, warmth, and trust

Passion – the motivational element, based on inner drives that translate to physiological arousal into sexual desire

Commitment – the cognitive element, the decision to love and to stay with the beloved

The 3 elements interact with each other, the size of the triangle actually depicts the amount of love - the bigger the triangle the greater the love. The components produce actions that take form into 7 specific patterns of love, which I will briefly explain.

Non love – the absence of the 3 components, this pertains to casual relationships

Liking – characterizes true friendships

Infatuation – romantic relationships start from infatuated love but without intimacy and commitment it will suddenly disappear

Empty love – Often found in long term relationships that have lost intimacy and passion or in arranged marriages

Romantic love – Romantic lovers are drawn to each other physically and bonded emotionally but they are not committed to each other

Companionate love – Sexual desire is not an element of companionate love. This is found in marriages where the passion is gone but the affection and commitment remains

Fatuous love – A couple makes a commitment on the basis of passion without allowing time for intimacy. This kind of love does not last

Consummate love – Also referred as complete love, this is what people strive for. It is easier to achieve it than hold onto it

Knowing all these things would not matter however if we do not show a behavioral manifestation of it. You cannot grab hold of love nor see love in its true form, you can only feel it. For guys, how could you show a girl you truly like or love her if at least you won’t exert an effort on buying her flowers just because it’s a Wednesday? For girls, how could you show a guy you like or love him too if you won’t try to show you appreciate the flowers by at least cooking for him? After all, we always say that actions speak louder than words, right? In the words of Robert Sternberg “without expression even the greatest loves can die”.

In my own words, don’t just hope for love. Make love happen.

 ~myeviltwin

Speech: A requirement 1

Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. We always look forward in the beginning of things. From the birth of the first born baby, the blooming of a flower, or the sight of the sun’s magnificent rays after a long cold rainy day. But it is most of the time the end of things that causes paranoia in all of us. A good example of which is 2012. A movie based on the ancient Mayan calendar, like most calendars, it is cyclical and unending. As one cycle ends, another is bound to begin. It is a prediction about the coming of the end of the world. Its destructive portrayal of what might happen has caused people to worry for their lives and in fact I worry for my own. It is evident that somehow people fear to know the end but still we are curious of what it has in store for us. It came to me though that what I fear the most is not dying painfully by being crushed by buildings or boiled by the earth’s molten lava. What I fear most is dying tragically and suddenly without being able to bid my last goodbyes and tell the people I care about how much I love them. It would be hard to wake up and realize everything is gone and that yesterday could have been your chance to prove your worth and live life to the fullest. Death is a situation we will all have in common with. But the events before our dying day will always depict the wonderful beginnings of a “once upon a time” life and finally the could still be, for you and me - “and we all lived happily ever after”.  It is after all the details of how we have lived that will actually live on. If the predictions on 2012 may do so happen, the end of time should not be feared so much then. What should cloud our minds are the simple yet important regrets we will be burdened with even after death, what could have been, and the might have been. Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

~myeviltwin

Leap through time

Dear time traveller,

Take me back to when I was born where I have made the
most profound cry to show the world that I have arrived.

If I had known the world would be so cruel, if I've had wished I had never been born, could you have granted this and maybe spared me from all the grief?

Take me back to when I was 1,

when everything in the world was

bigger than me, everything was a sight to behold. Oh how innocence enveloped me so warmly. The time of
simplicity then is a messy blur.

Take me back to when I was 3,

to my first day in school. To the moment I sat down and

made friends with kids who were just as scared as me.

Take me back to when I was 9,

the time I said, you're my new best friend.

Hail the new generation of awesome bonds of friendship that
lasted up until today!

Take me back to when I was 10,

the day we laid my great grandmother to rest.

The day I learned that adults hide their true feelings and are
therefore liars. In my head I shouted, just say it.

Just say you're not okay and don't lie about it.

Take me back to when I was 12,

when I refused to move and leave my friends.

The day my parents told me to stop acting like a child,

neglecting to see that I was a child and I was scared.

Take me back to when I was 14,

I had my first taste of alcohol, my first unsupervised night out.

I tasted cigarette before and now it felt even more right.

I let my emotions flow and disappear like the white screen of

smoke that surrounded the place where I was lost in.

The time of unreasonable display of emotions.

The birth of the rebel without so much as a cause.

The troublesome years of young confusion.

Take me back to when I was 16,

when I was not even spared from getting my heart broken

by a boy who I thought was my forever.

The time I learned that even the most celebrated form of emotion

known as love, can cut you even deeper into depression.
Take me back to when I was 18,
I was a legal adult, free to do as I pleased.
Yet I realized I will always want to be my parents' baby girl
even though I don't admit it.
Take me back to when I was 19,

to the day I noticed the boy singing beautiful girls oddly.

The surreal moment I thought would never happen to me,

I have found him. I have found love.
Take me back to when I was 20,
the word teen in my age is obviously gone.

Then I witnessed how teenagers after me think and act like how I used to.
I learned to smile and say, L'ho provato sulla mia pelle,
I know exactly what you are going through.

I am 21 now. I have caught up with myself in the here and now.
I take my beautiful memories and learned experiences.

I am happier. I am lucky. I am better off.

And so dear time traveller,

You won't be taking me anywhere after all.
I'm cancelling my appointment. 

~myeviltwin