If It Isn’t Love, I Don’t Know What It Is.

The LC Board Talk About Love on Valentine’s Day.

Regardless of Valentine’s Day’s long history — being an ancient Roman tradition, Lupercalia, which celebrated fertility — people the world over understand that Valentine’s Day is a day about love, the expression of it, and perhaps, the reflection of it.

In celebration of this wonderful day, the LC Board give their opinion on what love means, how to deal with pain, and how to deal with heartbreak. Here we go!

Aldrin Kevin, Senior Photojournalist and Head of P&P

Loving is Caring. Well that’s an abstract question. Very abstract! When we love something or someone, we think about it, constantly, to the point that we care. So, loving is basically caring.

Stay productive. For me, as a remedy for pain and heartbreak, I try to do something productive to distract myself, like taking a trip, photo hunting — just keep yourself busy. As an end note I’d like to quote one of Freddie Mercury’s works — Too Much Love Will Kill You.

R. Bayuputra, Editor and Creative Director

A lot of stupid things. For me, love is that primordial sense that sets rationality aside. I can’t say much about it, but what I do know about love is that it drags us to do remarkably stupid things. Love, passion — it’s something that makes you feel alive, feel real.

Pain and Heartbreak, inescapable. I like to channel sadness to more positive things. Dealing with pain and heartbreak is something of deep reflection, telling yourself that it’s alright (because nobody else will) and that you’ll get out of it in one piece, just like you’ve done a thousand times over. I try to distract myself with writing, reading, and studying… but sometimes, that doesn’t work, either, so I choose to do what many hopeless romantics have done for the last thousands of years: drowning myself in my sorrows! Though sometimes that just ain’t ever enough, so when things go south I really have no idea what to do. Only to wait. It takes time, it takes strength… but in an age where many people say love ain’t worth it, I think it’s still worthwhile, with the right person, at the right time.

Fakhranshah M. Fariz, Editor and Head of Accounts

Defining love. Love is passion, love is pain, love is sacrifice, love is affection. Hell, even hate is love. If someone actually asks me ‘what does love mean?’ or ‘what is love?’, I’ll instantly come to the conclusion that they’re out of their mind. Not a single healthy-minded person could define what love is. So if you do, I got some bad news for you. But, excitingly, we humans are equipped with the ability to see, feel, and smell love. And I’ll tell you a very interesting fact, that the most obvious way to decide whether you are in love or not, is time.

You will feel time goes much, much slower when you dislike what you do or what’s around you. You will feel the opposite if you do love them. At first glance, you might find that this isn’t that intriguing until you realize, that time is being awfully unfair to you.

When we are happy (or in love), we would like to experience it as long as we can. We want to cling to it, cherish it, and reside inside it. But, surprise! You got cheated by time, that that colourful feeling would just fly right in front of your eyes in a matter of seconds. And as if that’s not enough, you would find the time, mischievously, screwing you whenever you are working behind your desk (if you despise your job), whenever you sit with someone you’re not comfortable with in the same table, whenever you commute through a fully-packed train.

Even though love is just a brief, short-lived memory, it is still worth it. Me, absolutely, crave to live the rest of my life, being in love.

So, what does love means for me, is just me constantly yelling “pause in your trek, o time!”.

Dealing with Pain. Well, most of the time I’ll just ‘man-up’ and face it headlong. I think looking for distraction is not really works for me. See, this pain is just one more step of a flight of stairs that will bring you up. And after all is said and done, all you can see is the thing that causing you pain is already down below, barely visible, while you ascend into a better, updated version of yourself. Do your best to heal yourself, try not to depend too much on others, and the most important thing is to learn, and never regret. Forgive, and never forget.

Yes, it is not as easy as it sounds, but this is the best that I can do. Or maybe you too, and you just haven’t realized it yet. How to deal with pain? Just shake hands with it, I guess.

On Heartbreak. First thing first, do not blame anyone. Frequently, there isn’t someone who actually guilty for what you feel. You will be sad for the several first months, but rest assured that those months are what made you today. I tried my best to cope with the situation calmly, and again, I didn’t drag anyone into my healing phase. Some did well on those fragile months, some didn’t, and it shows. There just isn’t any strict method on how to deal with heartbreak. Find whatever that suits you and your need, with the objectives of turning your pain into acceptance, grow from it, and the most important thing is to try to keep yourself away from the others in this phase. Because these are fragile times, and so are you.

Lennart E. Tamaela, Socio-Political Editor, a man of few words

Love is sacrifice. For me, love means sacrifice. I share laughs, I shed tears, and I shout out my anger. For she had eyes, and chose me.

Prime time of self-care. When pain comes in, I usually try to have some prime time with myself. Music comes first for my remedy and stress reliever, luckily. When heartbreak decides to knock, I focus on doing productive things like having some exercises, hanging out with some friends, getting various of life experiences.

Benji Sowolino, Head of the Arts Director and Creative Director

A Worthwhile Kind of Stupid. Love for me is that fuzzy happy feeling you get when you talk to that special someone. It’s those stupid smiles you don’t realize you’re doing when you see them. Love makes you stupid, but it’s a worthwhile kind of stupid.

Sappy Songs, writing, listening. Dealing with pain for me is usually just venting out my emotions, whether through writing sappy songs or just listening to some sappy ones. On the other hand, dealing with heartbreak for me is really just letting time heal it (yes that’s very sappy I know). But it also involves finding things for myself to keep me busy, whether it’s reading, work, or anything else that shifts my focus elsewhere so I don’t make myself dwell on it.

Well, that’s all, folks!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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