Title Here.
Introduction This is a book about love. It is a book about romance, romanticism and love. It can be anything you want it to be, the book that is. It will not teach you about love, it will not teach you how to love. It probably won’t teach you anything; only that it can be anything you want it to be, love that is. Today we look at three types of love; Mania, Pragma and Agape. These love styles, also known as ‘love colours’ are more or less experienced by everyone. More or less anything. What colours they may be, who knows? But in this book is my interpretation. This book is also about film. It is a book about film, photography and love. At its best, film photography is perfect, it is perfect when it shows its flaws, its imperfections, that it’s real and that is what love is. At its best love is perfect when it shows its flaws, its imperfections. That’s what makes it real. But that’s not depicted by a perfect couple, gazing longingly enough so that it’s perfect, into each others eyes, the perfect sunset lowering in the background at that perfect second when it all meets by a click. To me love is depicted by an image of a dying flower, it is a unmade bed, it is a wine glass half full probably at the anticipation of unmaking that very bed. It is real life and it isn’t perfect. But it’s romance. It’s romanticism, it’s love. This is a book about Romanticism vs. love.
“This is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive.� - Man on the Train
Examples of ‘Love’: Mania ma·ni·a
A romantic love, to feel a connection and ascribe special meaning to time and place to present and past events; experience great emotional highs and lows, to create a secure feeling of specialness to each other. Also known as the troubled love. This love has jealousy and dependence (often called co-dependency), great intensity, some intimacy, and many psychological symptoms related to the relationship.
Pragma prag·ma
It is not crazy, intense, or out of control. Love is based on common sense and reason. People who experience love as Pragma tend to pick a suitable mate the way most other people make serious life decisions: picking a partner is based on careful consideration and reason.
Agape a·ga·pe
This is the love of altruism, of giving without asking anything in return, and of sacrificing oneself for one’s partner. Many would consider it to be the purest form of love.
Chapter 1. Mania Was it love at first sight? I couldn’t say. But waking up beside him, watching him sleep I knew there was something. It’s not the same something now, when I watch him, but definitely something. It’s that moment when I open my eyes and see him lying there opposite, almost as if a mirror’s between us reflecting a dimly lit version of my better side. It’s that moment when he realises too and wraps his arms too tight around me, a sort of “I know what you’re doing stop watching me sleep” apology which I’m always too happy to accept with open arms and a warm bed. It’s these mornings I live for, it’s these mornings I would of never of expected, waking up on that first day; starry eyed and fuzzy head.
“Is it a risk to love.” I’d say so, it’s 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. You’re going to get hurt? Yes, but will you have fun in the process? Definitely. It’s that sort of fun that you don’t care if it hurts you; the pain almost feels worth it for the highs. If you a pick a rose you know that you’re going to get pricked by a fawn but you still pick it. You still do it for the beauty, will it last forever? Who knows? A damn sight longer than the rose. You’d think anyway. “But what if it doesn’t work out? Ah, but what if it does.” Peter McWilliams Don’t you think it’s strange how relationships work. You choose someone and think, yeah you’re not too bad. And then that’s it, you’re strung together by this bond of not doing anything with anyone else and you enjoy that. You go places, you see things. You talk, so much talking. How can two people have that much to say to one another? And you’re content. You’re safe. All because of ‘yeah, you’re not too bad’.
Chapter 2. Pragma Claude Monet once said ‘I must have flowers always and always’; this is something we have in common. I don’t think there’s a week that goes by without me announcing that I must have flowers, more of a school girl tantrum than the heated passion Claude felt touching brush to canvas. To me flowers are one of the most beautiful creations on this planet. I’m not really sure what it is about them that makes them so desirable, the scent, the colour, the intentions they bring? I know that my bedside table wouldn’t be complete without my blush tinted roses, and that my window ledge would be lost without my one single orchid. That I would be empty without them. And that’s sad when you think of it. Such beauty, so simple yet so extremely significant that I feel I’d lose my health without them. Or head. Either way they bring you back to reality as the beauty you once knew withers before your eyes. They’re here then they’re gone. And you have to catch them in that moment, in that very moment to say ‘this is perfect; they are perfect, you are perfect,’ before it passes. Sooner or later it will pass and and it will pass. So fast that you won’t notice it and it’ll just be a memory of what once was. I feel like this may be the reason that I take pictures of flowers, I don’t want to forget how perfect they were in that very second. That they will never be as close to perfection as they are in that moment and that they never have been so close ever before. You are perfect. And you have it forever, it’s not a memory because it’s there, it’s alive. I think that’s why I take pictures in a relationship. I don’t want to forget how perfect it was in that very second. In that moment. You have to catch those moments to say ‘this is perfect; you are perfect, we are perfect.’
It’s the beauty of it, the anticipation of not knowing whats coming. You’re there in that moment and then bam you’re gone. Well click you’re gone. You wait a week or 2 for things to develop; of course you have to put the work in but you have to do that with everything nowadays. You assess, you re-shoot but you make it work. It’s about wanting to be in this moment forever. Wanting to capture this very moment, the temperature, the smells, the company. It’s the learning too, I’d say it’s an art. What works best, how everything fits, making mistakes and then making it better; making it work.
Chapter 3. Agape But love can be unkind too. Love can be the cruellest of them all. Even when it’s perfect, that’s when it knocks you; as if every breath has been taken from your lungs. As if every thought has tried to conquer your mind leaving you with what feels like an ever lasting ringing in your head. As if every light in the world has suddenly died out. That you’re left in the dark and you feel like it’s never going to get better, you’re going to feel this way until every breath has been taken from your lungs. You won’t. It hurts, it hurts a hell of a lot, but it’s love. It is possible to love someone so much, so much that it hurts. So much that the thought of losing them isn’t worth that very thought. But again, it’s love. And theres a high probability that they love you too, so much that it hurts. And that you’re both loved so much that the thought of losing one another isn’t worth that very thought. That’s when you’re the lucky ones. Because you love, and you are loved and although it hurts you experience all the moments when it doesn’t. When it’s perfect. What more could a person want than to love and be loved? To have someone you would do anything and everything for, to love someone or something so much that they become you, you no longer put your needs first because there’s them and they’re them and you love them for that.
We want more romanticism, light and hope. We want memories to look back upon with someone you’d give everything up for. We want the first dates and the seventy-first dates and the breakfasts in between. We need those moments that are tarnished, over exposed and ridden with noise to keep it sane, to keep us sane. To make it work and to keep it so that moment, that most perfect moment is the reason for the pain and the work and the do overs and to hope that one day you can look back at that moment, at that image and say I did. I can do, I did it for us and I did it for you.
This is a book about love. It is a book about romance, romanticism and love. It can be anything you want it to be, the book that is. It will not teach you about love, it will not teach you how to love. It probably won’t teach you anything; only that it can be anything you want it to be, love that is.
“This is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive.� - Man on the Train