Listening

The Psychology of Love 1  

One of the most important human emotions is love. 

However, there are many different kinds of love.

Romantic(浪漫) love is certainly one of the most interesting kinds of love.

It can be beautiful, wonderful, and heartbreaking, sometimes all at the same time.

Romantic love can make our lives full and meaningful, but it can also be an escape from loneliness and suffering.

If romantic love has a purpose, neither psychology(心理学) nor biology(生物学) has discovered it. 

However, throughout history, philosophers(哲学家) have offered opinions about it.

The Greek philosopher, Plato(柏拉图), said love makes us complete.

He relates a comic(滑稽) story in which humans originally had 4 arms, 4 legs, and 2 faces. 

Then, when they angered the Gods, they were cut in half.

Since then every person has been searching for their soulmate, the other half of his or her self.

Another philosopher believed that love is an illusion(错觉).

In his view, people fall in love because they believe the other person can make them happy. 

But in fact, this is just an illusion designed to make us have children.

Once we have children, we are right back to where we were, still searching for happiness. 

For nature this is a success, because we have children to maintain our species.

But it leaves us still searching for something more.

If something is an illusion, it isn't what it seems to be.

In Buddhism(佛教), romantic love is seen as an attempt to satisfy our desires. 

These desires are a defect(缺陷), something we need to overcome.

The way to free ourselves from suffering is to remove desires. 

Once free of desires we can reach a state of peace and wisdom(智慧). 

This state of being is called nirvana(涅).

Other kinds of love include the love between a parent and child.

The Psychology of Love 2 

In one of the China's greatest classical novels, Dream of the Red Chamber(红楼梦), love is presented as a state of foolishness. 

A young man falls in love with a beautiful woman who tricks and makes a fool of him.

This results in conflicting emotions of love and hate which tear him apart. 

To cure him, a priest(牧师) gives him a magic mirror.

The priest tells him to look into the reverse side of the mirror, but never to look in the front side.

When the young man looks into the mirror, he doesn't like what he sees, so he looks into the forbidden side, the front side.

There he sees the lovely image of his love, who invites him into the mirror to be with her. 

He does this several times until he is finally dragged away(拖走) in chains(锁链).

He dies while looking into the mirror.

Perhaps the point of the story is that all such attachments should be avoided.

He is dragged away in chains and dies while looking into the mirror. 

He enters the mirror to be with his love and satisfy his desires.

A famous France writer, Simone de Beauvoir(西蒙娜德波伏娃) has another point of view.

For her, love is the desire to integrate with another, like in a great friendship.

However, it is important that lovers not become too dependent on the other person.

Becoming dependent on another person can lead to boredom or power games.

Lovers should support each other in discovering themselves and developing their potentials. 

In this way, romantic love can enrich the world.

Falling in love can be exciting and frightening.

Maybe we lose ourselves and maybe we find ourselves. 

Will you dare to find out?

Vocabulary

Describing Situations 

Forbidden or prohibited, to be against the rules, or not allowed. 

Smoking is prohibited on many airplanes.

Athletes are forbidden from taking certain kinds of drugs. 

If something is allowed, it isn't forbidden or prohibited.

Risky: to be a bit dangerous or unsafe.

They were forbidden from going to that website because of its content. 

A risky investment may not be a good idea for people who worry too much. 

If you make a risky investment you may lose a lot of money.

What level of risk are you willing to take?

Investing in that company is very risky because it has many strong competitors.

Ridiculous: to be foolish or not make any sense.

Their proposal is ridiculous because it requires too much time and money. 

Without enough quality practice, it's ridiculous to expect much progress. 

He is lazy and the quality of his work is poor, so it's ridiculous for him to except a bonus.

Innovative(创新): to come up with a new idea or way of doing things. 

Innovative people are usually clever and creative.

To innovate means to come up with a new way of doing something.

Innovative thinking can lead to the development of new products and services.

He isn't innovative because he resists change and always wants to do things the same way.

His innovative proposals made several of the engineers very uncomfortable, but they finally agreed. 

Conservative(保守): to be conservative is to avoid taking risks. 

Conservative investors try to make safe investments.

A conservative investor wants to minimize risks.

A conservative approach to management may discourage innovation.

Weapons of any kind are prohibited inside the stadium.

She wants to escape from her parents because they are too conservative.

Agreeing to her innovative ideas was difficult at first, but it turned out to be the right decision. 

Interacting with Others

To disguise(伪装), to change something's appearance so that it can't be recognized. 

He wasn't good at disguising himself, so we knew who he was right away.

She wore a disguise, so I wasn't sure who she was.

He fooled everyone into believing in his plan, but it was all a disguise.

To clarify: to explain or make something clear.

We weren't sure what he meant until he clarified his ideas. 

Everyone was confused until she clarified what she meant. 

There are still many details that need to be clarified.

To confuse: to make things difficult to understand, the opposite of to clarify. 

Everyone was confused because her presentation was so disorganized.

He confuses people because he keeps changing his ideas.

The instructions were confusing, so nobody knew what to do.

Her comments during the meeting weren't very constructive because they were so confusing. 

To ignore: to try not to notice or deal with something; to act as if something isn't there. 

We try to ignore her, but she finally stood up and told everyone to shut up.

People don't respect or like her, so they ignore her in the office.

We can no longer ignore the fact that our company needs to be reorganized. 

To confirm: to indicate that something is correct or completed as expected.

We weren't sure if he was going to accept our offer until he called and confirmed it. 

We can't start the project without written confirmation that we agree on the details. 

He denied that he was at the meeting, but we have confirmed that he was there. 

We can't ignore the fact that we are losing money.

Dialogue

The Teenage Years

M1：What's so funny? What are you writing about?

M2：I'm writing about something I saw earlier this morning. 

M1：Really? Do you keep it a general?

M2：Yes, I do. Every weekend I write about things that happened during the week.

M1：How long have you been doing it?

M2：I've been doing it fairly regularly since high school.

M1：Are you going to turn it into a book?

M2：I don't know. Maybe I will someday, but for now it's just for me.

M1：So, what was so interesting about what you saw this morning?

M2：I was in the same coffee shop I usually go to and a group of teenagers came in. I couldn't help watching them and trying to hear some of their conversation.

M1：That must have been interesting.

M2：Yes, it was. The more I watched them the more I realized how glad I am that I don't have to go through that stage of life again.

M1：So it brought back memories, isn't it?

M2：Yes, it did. It was so clear how uncomfortable some of them were, yet, they were pretending to have a good time. At least, that's how what seemed to me.

M1：Why do you think they were pretending?

M2：It was just the way they smiled and laughed. It seemed unnatural and overdone as if they were bad actors.

M2：A couple of the boys were really awkword around the girls and two of the girls were wearing too much makeup. I had to stop myself from laughing.

M1：Yes, I can image it. I can remember wanting to be popular when I was in high school. Now that you mention it, it wasn't a great time, though I had some fun too.

M2：I guess it wasn't so bad at the time, except when I was preparing for my university entrance examinations. 

M1：Yes, that was awful. My parents put tons of pressure on me, so I thought I was going to go crazy.

M1：What about girls? Did you have any girlfriends?

M2：There was one girl I had a crush on, but I thought she was interested in somebody else. I didn't find out until much later that she was interested in me too. It was a lost opportunity, one of many.

M1：Really, you should become a writer or make a movie. You have a great imagination. M2：To be honest, it's much easier to image things than actually do things.

M1：You can say that again.

This kind of journals is a collection of observations rather than personal experiences. A group of teenagers came into the coffee shop where he was sitting.