Amor | Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandala
Amor | Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandala

This week, June Rubis curates Love Week for LoyarBurok, and hopes to teach you about the many ways of love, other than our preconceived ideas.

It started with the LoyarBorak on Love and Marriage. We all had to answer tough questions on romantic love. Perhaps tough only to me because I kept going back to revise my answers yet the essence remained the same: love, to me, is undefinable, particularly when it comes to romantic love.

To me, once I try to define the boundaries of my feelings of love, it seems to fall apart. Expectations lurk like a bad dream when the boundaries of love are defined, and the spontaneity of the moment is lost. It scares me to lose what I once knew as love into a trap of mundaneness, of going through the motions of societal ideas of a relationship for the sake of ‘not being alone’.

Yet I will not run away if I sense a unique connection with someone else. What I can only hope is that the other person shares the same view of love and relationships as I do, and that the only thing we can commit to each other is the promise to stay in the moment.

Possibly more so than any other types of love, romantic love is the most thought-of, the most desired. And why not? The very idea of sharing your life with someone in the most intimate way, till death do us part (regardless of whether we get married or not), is very intriguing. Yet we forget that nothing is guaranteed in life, except for death.

So why Love Week?

I love you in ASL | Source: http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/i_love_you.htm
I love you in ASL | Source: http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/i_love_you.htm

Completing the LoyarBorak made me realize that the other types of love are underrated. We focus so much on the idea of romantic love, yet love can be expressed in many ways, even beyond a person-to-person love.

Call me an idealist, but love for country has not been given enough credit.

Perhaps love for country is best expressed when we dare to step out of the individual’s and society’s comfort zones, question what we take for granted and more importantly, take responsibility for the consequences of doing so. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about street protests but rather, other quieter acts of love that sometimes can be seen as subversive, such as writing your thoughts down.

You need is love | Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/plasticjesus
You need is love | Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/plasticjesus

One of my favourite pieces for Love week include Aston Paiva‘s hard-hitting article, Moving On. Aston writes about how our concept on Freedom, Independence and Justice in our country is skewed. It is all too easy to blame the politicians but we often forget to hold ourselves accountable.

One of the many ways to hold ourselves accountable for love of country, is to VOTE. Soon to be first-time voter, Ruzaini Zul, writes about his anticipation of the up-coming general election, and how Malaysians should start voting on issues, instead of parties in Voting Time?.

Jahaberdeen Mohamed Yunoos reminds us to hold on to our ideals, and to forget about seeking recognition when it comes to fighting the unjust system. For the act of love does not need validation from others, when it is done from the heart.

We also have a special contribution from Nicol Paul Miranda, who writes about dealing with the fall-out of questioning the Rukunegara during his SPM trials.

Tiara the Merch Girl writes brilliantly about how Malaysians misunderstand human sexuality, in Malaysia, Truly Asexual.  Like love, sexuality is boxed up with preconceived ideas. Are we ready to take ownership of our bodies, and in turn our lives?

I have always been a fan of Avyanthi Azis‘ writing, and I had specifically approached her (as with Tiara, Clarissa Lee and others) to contribute for Love Week. When asked what she could write about, I vaguely, and unhelpfully said, “write about Love & Refugees”. She gamely took this challenge and submitted a well-written, sensitive piece of the undocumented struggling to survive in Kuala Lumpur, in Flight From Incheon. This piece is based on her work with the refugees.

Azira Aziz writes in Musings about how we could live in racial harmony and acceptance in our country, if we can only try. Love for our fellow beings, despite being so different in culture and language, is indeed possible.

Noreen Ariff tackles the topic of unrequited love, not once, but twice in two different languages. Watch out for Agar Kau Tahu and The Request.

Sometimes, love cannot be expressed sufficiently in words. We stumble to find the right words to do justice for how we feel. Often we fail. And thus, we have non-word love contributions from Shafina Sheridan, and Ashaari Rahmat.

Our Green Ink columnist, Leong Chow Pong, reminds us that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and gives suggestions on how we can be lovin’ and savin’ the Earth at the same time, in Low Carbon Dating.

There are also some other surprises from special contributors. Look out for it.

In the meantime, keep on lovin’, keep on hurtin’, keep on being human.

Love Week starts on Monday, Feb 7th, 2011 and runs till Sunday, Feb 13th, 2011.

June Rubis loves.

In another lifetime, June was a field biologist, searching for orang utans in the wild. She still dreams of living in the forests.

16 replies on “Curator’s Note: Love Week on LoyarBurok #LoyarBerkasih”

  1. Thank you Alina :)

    We'd miss it too! However there will be other interesting themes along the way for LoyarBurok. Keep on reading, and definitely consider contributing!

  2. Alina – thank you for your interest! I truly appreciate it. But unfortunately #LoyarBerkasih is drawing to a close tomorrow.. however, you can still contribute to loyarburok, no fear! Send contributions to loyarburokker at gmail.

    cheers

    june

  3. Marcus: thank you Marcus! Also, thank you for being fab back-stopper curator – couldn't have done this without you!

    Adriana: thanks Adriana – you are my Favourite Love LoyarBurokker Bunny too

    Clarissa, mind boggling, Ka Ea: perhaps, perhaps indeed… :)

    Syaz: I have a great idea! Do a Doctor Who Week on LoyarBurok! Solicit strange yet true Malaysiana stories.. We even have our own Daleks!

  4. Oh gee, June. I love you, but you're setting the bar SO high for future curators. (tries to peek over the bar and fails)

    And yes, I'm excited for Love Week :)

  5. 'keep on lovin’, keep on hurtin’, keep on being human'

    Love those lines. Very nicely put.

    Am looking forward to the articles of The Love Week. Good job, my favourite Curator of Love!

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