On Love And Judgment

.:Don't Judge Me:.

You call what I do as “juvenile”. Tall words from people who aren't working despite being my age. I call it a “hobby”. One that just happens to really make me a decent living every now and then.

You say my Beloved and I won't last because I'm not good enough for her. Yet if you recall, you were never good enough for her, either. You pretty much attempted to date just about everyone in your class, until someone finally bit the bait.

I don't claim to be God's gift to women, but not only are you no spring chicken, you're far from a prize catch, either.

I am who I am because this is what I do. Anyone who chooses to take a cursory glance at me and decide that I am not good enough better get their eyes checked, because people like those, people who just get by in life with superficial evaluations of character are the kind of people who are ignorant of how things really are. The people whose sense of wonder is so warped, that they are just so blocked into disrespecting an art form just because they probably suck at it.

Let it be known that better people who do what I do will be far more successful and more fulfilled than those who are too busy trying to bring the art down ever will.. That's a fact.

Let it also be known that you have absolutely no right to judge our relationship. My Beloved and I are doing just fine without your “expert” opinion, thank you very much.

.:More Than You’ll Ever Know:.

Whether you agree with Immanuel Kant or not, there is a lot of merit to his belief in doing the right for its own sake, not for any other ulterior motive through his categorical imperatives.

Kant, despite being planted arguably in the modern era of Philosophy, was one of those who questioned the modern trend of assigning truth as meaning, as he told them that we cannot know how things truly are, since the phenomenon does not necessarily correspond to the neumenon. In that insight, he turned epistemology on its ear: the nigh-omnipotent capacity of man to know through meaning suddenly found itself challenged, yet that did not stop man from doing what he must.

What man ought to do is not limited by what he can know. This applies to everything a priori and this is why when we commit to someone, we can commit forever, despite not truly knowing forever. We may not know what it is, but we are compelled to do it, because it is the right thing to do. That is where the notion of “ignorance of the law is not an excuse” came from, after all.

That is why I do not hesitate in wanting to be with my Beloved forever. Though I may not know what will happen in ten years, in ten months, or even in ten days, I would be doing her a grave injustice to only strive for as far as I know, for what I know pales in comparison to the ultimate grandeur that is true, devoted love.

It is not a question of “do I know what forever entails?” It is a question of “ought I give my whole heart to someone whom I claim to love?”

The answer is a hearty “yes”, and I am thankful with each passing day that my Beloved is in my life. As I was telling a friend the other day, it’s a very wonderful story to be able to tell when one ends up being with the one they always dreamed of, and considering how long I’ve known Rowena, I always thought it would forever remain to merely be a case of “ligaw-tingin”, as it were. I’m very grateful that in time, she and I hit it off, and though the rest of this love story is still unwritten, I can safely say that at this point, I am living the dream.

Just last Tuesday, when we talked about spending Christmas together, I said offhand that we would, “assuming we’re still together”. Normally, she’d agree with me, but yesterday, she instead told me that I shouldn’t be so pessimistic and believe we still would be. This is the first time she ended up being more optimistic than I am about our relationship, and I seriously choked up over the simple but very touching gesture. How can you not love someone like that?

To this day, it still boggles my mind whatever I did so right to deserve someone as wonderful as my Beloved. While I do not know what I did, I pray that I continue to do right whatever it was that I did right. I’m so into her, and words cannot express how deeply I’ve fallen and how I’ve practically painted myself into a corner with how much I love her.

It’s something that I willingly do for her…

Despite all the setbacks, despite our clash of ideologies here and there, at the end of the day, we love, and though our understanding is finite, our aspirations to be perfect for each other is not.