The Four Loves: Reflections/王詩瑋

The Four Loves: Reflections

進階英文作文2Ac 王詩瑋

What Is Love? Before I read The Four Loves, teacher asked students to write down our own thoughts about Love. I think, Love is multifarious, and love is also hazardous. If people fall in love, he or she may feel happy, upset, angry, helpless and painful. Love is a verb, it means one pays for each other unconditionally. If one loves someone, he will do anything for him and forgive him. But love is also dangerous; if someone wants to ask for the payback, or he doesn’t want to accept the fact that the one he loved doesn’t love him, he may do something horrible. Love is a difficult lesson for human beings to learn how to be a rational lover. And after I receive my paper from teacher, she gave me some ideas; she considered the most dangerous thing in love is you can’t control your heart. Exactly, I agree, and after I read the books, I could understand more about love.

    The Four Loves is a bestseller which written by famous author, C. S. Lewis. In the introduction, C. S. Lewis mentioned what is the Gift-Love and Need-Love, Gift-Love means give unconditionally, and the Need-Love means craving to be loved. And C. S. Lewis also mentioned the selfish love and indispensable love; he thought that human couldn’t leave Love just like human couldn’t live without food. The most part in the introduction is the God Love; C. S. Lewis distinguished the definitions between Gift-Love and Need-Love of the God Love in his way. In the book, The Four Loves, the writer said the Gift-love and the Need-love are the two of love. Before I read the book, I don’t understand what Need-love is, I only know the Gift-love means the unconditionally love. In fact, I think the friendship, the family and the love between lovers are called Gift-love. You give your love to someone you loved and you won’t ask for pay back. And after I read the book, I think I can know the meaning of the Need-love. When I born, I need mother’s love and father’s love, and my parents gave me their whole love to protect me. It calls Need-love. And in my opinion, I agree that the writer, people won’t blame the babies because babies really need love. But I still can’t understand the relationship between God and love, maybe it’s because I believe in an explicit religion. I only know the God will give people the belief and help people getting stronger and braver. Love is really a difficult but also easy stuff that always exist in life.

    In the chapter II, Liking and Loves for the Sub-Human, I found a special paragraph and have some idea. “Scientifically both sorts of pleasure are, no doubt, relative to our organisms. But the Need-pleasures loudly proclaim their relativity not only to the human frame but to its momentary condition, and outside that relation have no meanings or interest for us at all (page.30).” After I read the paragraph, I suddenly realize the Need-pleasure is just like the Need-love. All of human beings need love and pleasure; we born this way. And also, I found another paragraph. “The objects which afford pleasures of appreciation give us the feeling-whether irrational or not-that we somehow owe it to them to savour, to attend to and praise it (page.30).” And this sentence is talking about the Appreciation-pleasure. I think people always ignore the Need-pleasure and pursue the Appreciation-pleasure. We use different angles to treat the two and make them become so distinct.

    And in the chapter III, Affection, is talking about the emotion. I was touched with the following sentences. “If you take natures as a teacher she will teach you exactly the lessons you had already decided to learn; this is only another way of saying that nature does not teach (page.35).” “The only imperative that nature utters is, ‘Look. Listen. Attend.’(page.36)” I think in the two sentences, the author wanted to illustrate the nature is the root and we don’t need to learn how to have dealings with it. The only thing we need to do is just attend the nature and feel its wonder. “But Affection has its own criteria. Its objects have to be familiar. We can sometimes point to the very day and hour when we fell in love or began a new friendship. I doubt if we ever catch Affection beginning (page.55).” After I read this paragraph, I also wonder whether I still remember the beginning of Affection. I think I might miss the moment but I would cherish he relationship. To me, I love my friends and I remember the first sight when we talk. For example, my best friend, Maple, was my classmate in high school. And the first time we talk because she helps me to find a little stuff which was important to me. After that, we didn’t become friends. Sometimes we went home together, and went to book store after school. And, we became best friends, but I don’t know the exact moment or the exact reason makes us so closed. It’s really weird but wonderful. And we are still best friends now. It was a chance that brought us together.

     Friendship is the chapter IV in the book, and I think I have the most thoughts with the chapter. Especially the following three paragraph, there are my story in life. In the class, teacher mentioned the following sentence specially. “Who see human life merely as a development and complication of animal life all forms of behavior which cannot produce certificates of an animal origin and of survival value are suspect (page.90).” In the beginning, I considered human beings are just a kind of animal and we were smarter than other animals. But my friends, Jenny talked about it and she gave me many different ideas so that I know the human beings are not just a kind of animal. The reason we are not just normal animal is that we have our thoughts and we want to become a better one. Human study for learning more knowledge, play the music for relaxation and enjoyment, take photos for record the special moment, etc. we know how to enjoy our life not just for survival. If we are just animals, we don’t need to learn the second language, the grammar, and the writing skills. Besides, we don’t need to dress up, to make up, and even don’t need to wear. So, these can confirm that human beings are not just a kind of animal.

    And I recalled a complex relationship between my friends and me. My friends, Mira and Rita, and I, we are good friends. But I couldn’t stand that Mira and Rita always get together and forget me. I love both of them, but they sometimes would enjoy their time and ignore me. I think, I am very jealous of the friendship between them. Also, Mira and Rita would get mad when I get closed with one of them. “Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves (page.92).” This does not make sense to me. In my opinion, if there are only two people in a relationship, then the sentence would be true. Most of people are selfish, including me; we don’t want to share a person who we are very valuable to us with others. No matter what relationship between us, we may feel jealous when someone breaks the balance of the relationship. 

    I love the friendship only between two members. Last semester, I went to Taipei alone. And I really realized the following sentence, “friendship is extremely useful, perhaps necessary for survival, to the individual (page.101).” My friend, Emma gave me her hands and accompanied me for three days. She studies music in Taipei. And after I arrive there, I couldn’t find the way to take the MRT. I called her for help, and she taught me how to do, and she also showed up in the MRT when I finally arrived Tan Shui. She was my classmate in junior high school. And we always hang out when we are in a long vacation. The three days in Taipei, I was really happy with her. She’s an awesome person in my life. I couldn’t survive in strange Taipei without her.

    Chapter V is talking about Eros, but honestly, I have no ideas about the word. And I was very shocked about the context in this chapter. In the beginning of this chapter, I felt confused about what the writer wanted to say. But I understood after I read the following, “Sexuality makes part of our subject only when it becomes an ingredient in the complex state of ‘be in love.’ That sexual experience can occur without Eros, without being ‘in love,’ and that Eros includes other things besides sexual activity (page.131).” And the other sentences also touched me a lot. “If we had not all experienced this, if we were mere logicians, we might boggle at the conception of desiring a human beings, as distinct from desiring any pleasure, comfort, or service that human being can be given. “ “Lovers themselves are trying to express part of it (not much) when they say they would like to ‘eat’ one another (page.136).” Although I oppose the premarital sex, I have to say, I want to eat my boyfriend. I mean, I love him and I want him always be with me, so I want to eat him and makes he become part of my body. 

    After I read the book, I know kinds of love and how to explain the behavior of love. But in this book, there are many parts with difficult examples to understand if our teacher didn't explain for us. It’s really a special and meaningful book, but it’s also hard. I think I may buy the Chinese version to help me to understand all meaning behind the examples. The Four Loves is an old and deep book, it’s really worthy to read it.