In one of the China’s greatest classical novels, Dream of the Red Chamber,love is presented in the state of foolishness.
A young man falls in love with a beautiful woman who tricks and makes afool of him.
This results in conflicting emotions of love and hate which tear himapart.
To cure him a priest gives him a magic mirror.
The priest tells him to look into the reverse side of the mirror, butnever to look in the front side.
When the young man looks into the mirror he doesn’t like what he sees sohe looks into the forbidden side, the front side.
There he sees the lovely image of his love who invites him into the mirrorto be with her.
He does this several times until he is finally dragged away in chains.
He dies while looking into the mirror. to
Perhaps the point of the story is that all such attachments should beavoided.
He enters the mirror to bewith his love and satisfies his desires.
The way to free ourselves from suffering is to remove
desires.
A famous French writer Simon de Buvoir has another point of view.
For her love is the desire tointegrate with another like in a great friendship.
However, it is important that love is not becoming too dependent on theother person.
Becoming dependent on another person can lead to boredom or power games.
Lovers should support each other in discovering themselves and developing theirpotentials.
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?
