On Filipino Love
2.11.2005
My reply to my good pal goth/mark about "if love is infinite, how come we say we 'fall out of love' " Infinité ala Levinas, in Totalité et Infinité. This is related to a previous post on the many words for love of the Filipino. From this link. And the previous post, re: On Love.
On Filipino Love
Mark,
On if love is infinite, how come we say we "fall out of love".
I have this to say Because we humans are subject to the constraints of language. We are limited creatures existing in logic and syntax. Wittgenstein yata 'yan or something, I can't remember. That is to say therefore that," we 'fall in love' or fall out of love", is a mistaken expression. It is a fault of our limited and human struggle to conceptualize what we experience. Yet English can't quite capture it! See, Love manifests itself easily, concepts as morality or God is harder to understand.
It would have been better to have saidf I LOVE, as an action word, or "I am Loving NOW" or I am IN (within) Love or Love is within ME. Falling in and OUT to me suggests lack of control. That operative word of "Control".
In Filipino parlance, we say "Nahuhulog na yata ang loob ko sa kanya " - notice the incidental "KAHULUGAN" - MEANING. Being / meron is a concept inherent in our tongues, parang Greeks ang Filipino, we have different words for love, sayang hindi lang naisulat ang ating Pilosopiya. Bakit sinasabing ka-HULUG-an? Dahil eksakto siya, things fit exactly to the hole - hindi SABLAY ([not] oblique/off tangent). It fits. Therefore, in the Filipino philosophy Falling or mahulog is given an added twist in meaning - not loss of CONTROL unlike in ENGLISH.
BUT willingly MEANING oneself - TO BE. HENCE our various levels of love and related words ... pag-ibig, pag-irog, pagsinta (see my blog on different notes about them and their meanings) and related words such as tiklad, bugso, alab... We are a people of lovers! ;-)
As for have a been IN love? Now that's another question.
Labels: Philippines
posted by Jdavies @ 2/11/2005,
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J.Davies
Jdavies lives in Quezon City, Philippines and has been blogging since 2002. A brand manager in a leading technology company and a freelance new media/web strategy consultant, he has refocused his blogging from personal, political & sociological observations, to marketing-related efforts and Internet trends that are relevant to his career and branding advocacies.
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