What it isn't.

So you think it's all about hugs, and flowers and sweet notes.

There's a reason why I don't watch romantic chick-flicks. I'm not impressed by romantic fluff. So you argue movies are based on real-life, and I'd tell you I know enough people who've had enough of their lives ruined because of unrealistic expectations, heightened to ludricrous heights because of a Colin Firth. I defend Disney. People ought to know that cartoons feed our inner child. Children don't have issues with romance. There's no complication when it comes to the number of bouquets, timing of poetry, the level of creativity. It comes with a standard armour and a flying white unicorn. Period.

I like to listen to Real stories. However small or unimpressive the gesture, a real-life act of love beats the dramatic love sequel of epic proportion any day.

So you tell me you've lost someone, the someone I told you to stay away from but you wanted to give it a shot anyhow. You asked me what I thought and I said I didn't like to try such things out. I don't do trial and error. You said it was worth it. I shrugged.

And we all thought it was wonderful, all the hugs, flowers and sweet notes. But these things aren't love at all. They are Romance at best, deception at worst.

Love is not a feeling. It is a choice.

We think we love, so we wrap a part of our hearts in delicate chiffon, tie it up in satin ribbon and give it away, let it into someone else's skin. We think we love, so we give more and more, till it stifles and stunts and sucks away. We like the feeling. But love is not a feeling. Romance is. Love is a choice.

I tell you what it is. Love is self-control. It is restraining yourself so you don't smother someone or something else. It is thinking logically, holding back your words of declaration, putting the other person's best interest first over your own feelings, even if it means giving the other time, space, movement because it simply isn't the right time for the other to hear it. It is maintaining a distance even though your body chemicals crave the intoxicating feeling of a close presence, a perpetual lingering fuzzy feeling, because you know the Physical Touch complicates things. It complicates things far too much. Love is feeling the feeling, then thinking about it with regards to the other person's best interest, then more often than not, learning to take authority over unreined emotions, sometimes even suppressing them, willing them away because it isn't the right thing, or the right time, or so we can test to see if we were really genuine about Love or merely seeking Security instead. Love is being there even if you don't feel like it. If we based our affections on feelings alone, there'd be hardly anyone keeping up with a marriage, a church, a job. Love is discipline, the anti-thesis of emotional indulgence and gluttony. It is temperance, self-restraint, self-control- without controlling the other person.

Love is not a feeling. I am convinced.

"I'm surprised and yet not surprised to hear this from you. I think many people would disagree with you, Wai Jia, especially artists. We, artists, are intense people. Emotional. All this self-control, you all right up there?"

"Yea. Of course I am. It's difficult- it really is. "

"I must say I do admire it though. It's very... ideal. I'd feel trapped though, really. "

" I feel trapped sometimes too. I'm an artist too, remember?"

"Yea."

Being free, doesn't come for free.

It's not a feeling. It's a daily emotional crucifixtion to our basic human instincts to do what's right, whats best for the other person, even if it means putting your blood in the ice for a while. True love goes against your basic human instincts.

Right?

It's the highest art form of all. Taking control of the Emotion and putting it under Will.

Love is a choice.