What Is Your Love Story?

Everyone has a 'story', right?

What I mean by that is that everyone has a set of beliefs about themselves and their relationship to everything else (love, money, luck, life, etc). Some stories look like this:

I cannot earn a lot of money right now because the economy is bad and because my former manager embezzled money from me so I can't trust anyone to work for me and......

But the real story that this person has deep within is:

I am not successful; I will never have what others have; I cannot count on anyone to be loyal to me....

These are her (or his) deeply held and sometimes even unconscious beliefs about her/himself. These beliefs, or this STORY will define how you show up in life! That's why it is so important to know your Love Story.

A Love Story in Essence

A movie can be good. However, seldom can a movie that is adapted from a novel gain acclaim. This does not mean that the movie is of low quality, but audiences expect more from movie adaptations.

In the year of 1999, German writer Gunter Grass won the Nobel Prize for his virgin novel The Tin Drum. For years, I had not finished it because it is indeed a river novel. However, I made up my mind to finish reading after I saw the movie The Tin Drum that directed by Volker Shlondorff.

After I saw the movie, I read the whole book and I find that both the movie and the book are quite good and the movie is even better. I believe that the success of this movie is mainly because that the director bravely trim some plots and details of the novel.

Truth About A Sad Love Story

Falling in love is easy but leaving the one you love is hard. We never like a sad love story because we always want to picture out our love life as something that gives us purely happy thoughts. But this is never true and it will never be true if we talk about reality. In every love life and relationships, we always learn the hard way. It's always part of a person's experience to fall in love and get hurt. It's cool to know when even despite all the joy and pain you still get to be with the one you love but this does not always happen; some stories about love are just not meant to be that way.

When you think about love, you always get that sort of happy feeling. When you are in love, you get the butterflies. It's always a great emotion that sprouts out of a lonely and incomplete heart when love begins to bloom. But when things get tougher and harder, a different reaction is always expected. Some people think that things are always going to be smooth when it comes to their love story most especially if both persons love each other.

Japanese Lacquerware Tells An Ancient Love Story

There is a fascinating story to be discovered through a piece in Jacqueline Avant's fine art works collection. This has involved a vintage collection of mostly pre-modern Japanese lacquer wares on display in southern California not very long ago. The images which have been engraved on several beautiful pieces in the Avant Collection include references to the literature of the courts. Interpretations of poems appear on lacquer regularly from the 13th century to the present time. The Six Immortals (872-945 AD) in the preface to the "Kokinshu" anthology form the basis for early literary quotes in lacquer. By the 18th century, images from poetry about the seasons of romance, themes from court fiction, or images from noh drama held an important presence among lacquer designs. When the Avant Ono no Komachi "suzuribako" was produced, layers of reference had accumulated around a theme like Komachi's. Therefore, the sad story of Ono no Komachi is indeed an interesting one to reflect upon.

Komachi lived a life that became a legend in her own time and has grown since in popular fascination. She was a stunning beauty of a young woman. A number of interested young men attempted to gain her favor. However, Komachi was not interested in any of the men who tried to pursue her. According to the mythology which surrounded her, she informed one suitor that if he came to visit her one hundred times only then would she allow him his earnest wish. This man was madly in love with Komachi, so he agreed to the arrangement. After many visits, he began to feel confident about his chance of success in the end. Then there came a night when one of his parents died. He was summoned away for a time of mourning, so he could not visit Komachi on that occasion. When he returned to her, she promptly rejected him. Later, this man also died in a great soul-wrenching depression which was caused by the cruel way his lover had treated him. Consequently, Komachi spent the rest of her life alone. She lived beyond the age of one hundred as a destitute, old hag. Despite the enormous legend, there is very little in Ono no Komachi's original poetry to give details about her biography. There are poetic subjects of the spurning of a lover and the lifelong regrets about her fading beauty. In the end, her beauty was lost forever.