LOVE. - ERIC KIM

Dear friend,

I want to share with you some of my thoughts on love— my experiences, what I think love is, and why it is the superlatively most important thing in the world:

1. AGAPE love (selfless love)

AGAPE is ‘selfless love’ — coming from the Greek.

For me, I follow in the footsteps of my buddy Jesus. I think the purpose of being a human being is to love others— openly, selflessly, and without fear.

2. My love for Cindy

The romantic love of my life is Cindy. She is my wife, and my life. She is the reason I wake up in the morning— to make her a morning coffee, breakfast, to help drag her into her archives, to help encourage her, to help celebrate her (small) wins in life, the hugs, dances, simple meals at home, and bedtime conversation.

For me, she is the greatest fountain of joy in my life. The second being my creative work. She inspires a lot of my creative thinking— her poetry, use of visuals and film pushes me to become the best artist I can. Cindy’s personal philosophy is very pragmatic, ‘Don’t waste your life.’

Seeing her research in her academic work — it encourages me to seek self-scholarship. I am an autodidact — I drive my own research. But I am lucky to have Professor Nguyen to be my mentor.

3. Does your life partner help you ‘level-up’ in life?

To me, you know if you’ve found the right life partner if they help you become the best version of yourself.

For example, assuming that life is an RPG video game (role playing game) — and I am a Paladin (Knight), she is a Necromancer or ‘Javazon’ (two character builds in Diablo II). She helps me ‘level up’ in life, and helps me kill all the monsters and bosses in life. I am stronger with her. I can still level up by myself, but the process is a lot slower, and I am more likely to die.

4. Find someone who believes in the same morals/ethics as you

I also believe that the best way to find a life partner isn’t to find someone with your same personality. Rather, to find someone with the same morals and ethics as you.

Cindy and I both met at ‘Kyrie Eleison’ — a Catholic group at UCLA. We both believed in the same dreams in life— even though our personalities are so different. I am classified as an ‘ESFP’ according to Myers-Briggs, while she is an ‘INTJ.’ I am the loud-mouth extrovert, she is the introspective introvert. I am the feely-intuitive/Dionysian — she is the rational, considered/Apollonian.

She helped me live out my dreams. When I was a Sophomore in College, my dream was to backpack through Europe. Everyone in the club knew that she was the world traveler— so she helped me plan my backpacking trip. She helped me book hostels, told me about Ryanair, and how to travel on a shoe-string. I still remember that one drunken night when she encouraged me to take a risk in life to go on the backpacking trip — that night (at around midnight), after way too many glasses of wine, I took out a $5,000 loan from UCLA to travel. The next day I told her what I did— she thought I was crazy.

Eventually, she ended up going on the trip with me. She told me, ‘Eric— I’ve wasted so much time helping you plan this trip. You don’t have a choice— I decided I’m coming.’ I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘Sounds good to me’ (secretly, I was ecstatic).

Over the years, she believed in my dreams and pushed me to achieve them. She helped encourage me to co-found the UCLA Photography Club. She encouraged me to start this blog in 2011, and it is still going 6 years strong. She encouraged me to take more (calculated) risks in life, and to not waste my life playing Starcraft II.

5. Finding your life partner is random

I think the greatest thing about going to college and meeting your life partner is that it is totally random. Seriously.

Cindy is Vietnamese-American, and I am Korean-American. If you asked me for my preferences, I would say I wanted a Korean-American wife/girlfriend. But we met randomly in this Catholic club, and while we met at age 18, we didn’t start really talking until age 20.

In high school, she was the nerdy Decathalon/Latin coach. In high school, I was the cray-cray (now what they would call a ‘f*ck boy’) who got fucked up with his friends on the weekend, would spray-paint and tag graffiti, cruise around town blasting underground hip-hop with my two 12’’ subs in my trunk. In high school, she was sheltered at the home, and grew up in libraries. In high school, I had 100% freedom, and treated the world like my playground. In college, she was part of all these academic clubs, and was a first-rate student. I was doing okay in college, and focusing more on self-discovery through studying Sociology.

Cindy grew up more conservatively, I grew up as curious kid who wandered to my heart’s content. She was the poet, I was the ‘non-PC’ inconsiderate self-centered, narcissistic, asshole.

But somehow, it worked out. Why? We both believe in God, practice good works, we both believe in the value of family, we both enjoy the simple joys in life (coffee, walking, engaging conversation), we both like to work (we are both ‘work-a-holics’ — working 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week), and we both love to travel and have new experiences.

So the lesson I learned is this: it doesn’t matter if your personalities or background is different. What matters is whether you share the same world-view, the same goals, and the same dreams in life.

6. A ‘perfect’ life partner doesn’t exist.

There is no ‘perfect’ partner. We still fight and bicker a lot. I still talk more than I listen. She is still curt and often has little patience with me. I often disregard her feelings and emotions. She often says things that hurt me.

But it don’t matter. I treat love like two jagged puzzle pieces— they fit together, but there are still rough edges. And that is fine. As time goes on, we have started to file down the rough edges. My dream is that when we are both about to die — we can fit (almost) perfectly.

7. Cindy is my other and (better) half

Cindy completes me, and is my other part. She is the yin to my yang. She is the almond-butter to my jelly (yes I’m from Berkeley). She is the smell of freshly-ground (light roast) espresso to my morning. She is the swatch of color in my life. She is my life coach, she is my sounding board, and she is my best friend.

8. Show your love through actions

I still don’t know a lot about love. But I know that love isn’t a feeling. If love was a feeling, I would be better off just taking Ecstasy (the drug).

I feel that love is action. You can’t tell someone you ‘love’ them without doing anything.

I show my love by shutting my mouth when I’m angry and want to hurt her. I show my love to Cindy by encouraging her when she feels down. I show my love to Cindy by remembering to fill up her stamp-card at the coffee shop. I show my love to Cindy for picking up some 72% dark chocolate from the airport. I show my love to Cindy for uplifting her when she feels like shit.

And Cindy shows her love for me in so many ways. When she cleans my retainers by putting it into a solution. When she makes me yummy meals. When she is patient with my bullshit. When she reads my blog, watches my YouTube videos, and encourages me. When she criticizes me — she wants me to push myself higher.

9. Share love with everyone around you

So friend, who are your main loves in life? Your kids, friends, family, parents, and local community? I encourage you to also show love to all those around you— especially to strangers. I feel street photography is a practical way of showing your love to strangers— by talking with them, making ‘street portraits’, saying ‘Whats up boss?’ to the bus driver, giving fist-bumps to the baristas at the coffee shop for pulling a ‘God shot’, for giving high-fives to your friends or students.

10. All we need is love

Love is what makes us human:

Always,
Eric