What do you love with?

"I like that Korean dood!" My pre-teen boy claimed the other day.

How can I hide from the two watchful princes at home while I am hooked on the other prince called HRH. So the princes found their mom kept watching some Korean dramas that always have this same cool dood appearing. Not for long they already got confused enough, "Hey, it's this guy again, is his name Minhyong or Yongming? or Canyu or Junsang?". I've got a hard time to explain to them clearly that these guys are from different dramas that played by the same actor. And they have watched with me enough dramas that they manage to get all the stories connected up as if they were watching a super big intertwined drama with all the stories of WinterSonata, FirstLove, LoveGreetings meshed together.

One day out of the blue, my innocent little prince asked me a question which I found quite profound - "Mom, do you love with your heart, or do you love with your brain?"

I was puzzled for a second, surprised by his sudden question. Naturally I wondered what had caused him to ask me a question like this? But got to give an answer in time. Dealing with kids for such a long time, I tend to treat them as adults. I tend to answer their questions with the seriousness and respect as if they were adults. So I decided to deal with this question in a matter of fact manner, not trying to give an implied answer trying to target to my imagined source of his question. So I decided to give it a theoretical answer.

Here it goes --- (This is my personal understanding and belief, feel free to comment and argue if you find this interesting.)

You love with both. I think initially you love with heart, it's called fall in love, isn't it? The heart is not a brain, it can not "think" but it "feels". The first impression, the attraction is "felt" more than "thought" by the parties involved. And then ideally, you should really love someone with your brain. This love is referred to the long term relationship with a commitment for the whole life. To maintain a love like this requires more brain work than just heart-pleasing impulses. The life long love brings not only joy but from time to time pain. It is the brain that makes the choices and decisions, it is the brain that determines on enduring the sufferings and sacrifices that comes with the love, and taking actions to refresh and enhance the love relationship. I believe that the heart sows the seed for love, and it takes the brain to tend it and keep it alive and healthy.

Well I did not say the exact words as I put here to present to my little prince with the answer, rather I put it in a more child-friendly way so that he was pretty satisfied. Eventually I figured out that they were mostly intrigued by the story of Winter Sonata, that they got very concerned about the memory loss issue of Junsang. They were trying to understand how Junsang could and would love Yujin after he lost all his memory of the youthful first love of his high school sweetheart.

One of the arguments my princes got was, if you love with your heart, then Minhyong who lost his entire early age memory should not forget about his first love Yujin because even though his brain was damaged, his heart was still intact, he should remember his love for Yujin.

I guess this argument got its point. I tend to think there is even support for this point from the drama. Don't you think the drama actually suggested that Minhyong did get attracted by Yujin from day one even as a "brand new" young man. Even though he thought he never met her before, his heart is still being pulled to her instantly, feeling the tug and tick, the curiosity and attraction. You see, there does exist the attraction and fate that the brain can not initiate and control. The modern scientists decided to call it "chemical", others call it the "gift from Heaven", either way, I do believe that this mysterious seed of love does exist and can not be planted by brain alone. I truly believe it is planted by something higher than a human brain.

Now kids got more puzzled - how can the dood behave like he really forgot about Yujin and was dating another girl - Chelin. The logical conclusion can only be one loves with the brain. So if you lost part of your brain function, you lost your love. Yes that's true, the story showed how the "newly found" Junsang suffered from the pain of losing the time of being with Yujin for 10 years and the inability of recalling his past love experiences and memories. The love comes from the heart of Minhyong and Yujin was imperfect due to the loss of time and memory that Junsang's brain could have worked on for 10 years.

The other support in the dram for "love with brain" comes from how Minhyong formed his opinions on Yujin and Chelin and the actions he took in correspondents. Remember Minhyong said a few hurtful things to Yujin because of his misunderstanding of her. Oh that Chelin was so trickery before she turned away from her jealousy. Although Minhyong was attacted by Yujin, but misled by Chelin's tricks, he concluded Yujin was a fivolous woman, with his righteous mind, Minhyong informed Yujin "I like women, but I don't like the type of women like you! ..." Oh how hurtful, my heart will turn into ice by these cold words. But from this you see how Minhyong used his brain to control his emotions. And further more, after he found out about the truth, immediately he decided to break up with Chelin and to devote all his love to Yujin, knowing that this love may bear no fruit because of Yujin's family pressure and the past situations with her fiance Sanghyuk.

Now more proof of the importance on love with brain - When Minhyong found out that Sanghyuk was dying because of her breaking up with his engagement, and Yujin did not have courage to visit him in the hospital and to face the risk of the unwillingly marriage with Sanghyuk in order to save his life, Minhyong made an extraordinary decision out of love for Yujin. He drove Yujin to the hospital and convinced her that she should do the right thing to save a person's life, he decided to take the risk of sacrificing his love to exchange for a life even though the person was his rival in love. This type of sacrifice can only come from the brain, and only the brain can have the power of restraining the heartful emotion and performing the selfless act. Now only at this point in the drama, I am convinced that Minhyong is the perfect man to love and be loved. Sanghyuk is not a bad man, he is a typical, above average nice young man you can find in the real world, he is caring, loving, handsome, intelligent, mostly gentle, with the normal shortcomings of a normal man, sometimes being narrow-minded and jealous, telling little lies, doing hurtful things for selfish reasons, and will repent right after. In one word, he is an acceptable earthly practical nice young man. In contrast, Minhyong is extremely charming, cheerful, clean, pure, truthful, gentle, righteous, wise and manly. In the words from Yujin's colleague, Jinhyak's mouth, "He is the perfect man!". Every little turning point in the story, his choices were always higher than Sanghyuk's. He exhibited an ideal man who possesses a heart and brain that are extra-ordinary. I believe this is the key reason (not ignoring all the other factors as we already knew), that Winter Sonata and BYJ have been extremely welcomed to so many women's heart for so long and so deep.

There you go, I believe the "small" love comes from the heart, the "big" love grows from it and relies on the brain to survive, the longer (and older ^_^ ) the relationship is, the more it relies on the brain to keep it happy, healthy and long-life.

Wonder why I am babbling about the Winter Sonata and my "philosophy" of love? HeeHee, I am setting it up for the discussions of April Snow.

I am so thankful for being a mother of two princes, they are my inspirations. Well and I am even more thankful for being in a family of HRH, he is the inspiration of my inspirations.