On Falling In Love > IDEAS & IDEALS

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 What is it, you may ask, that made a sixty-year-old man, married with wife and all grown-up children, regular church-goer, graduate of Korea Air-Force Academy, excellent fighter-bomber pilot and officer in the air force, four-star general, chief of the staff, and finally Minister of Defense, leave his office incognito late at night, and against everyone's expectation direct his course to a hotel room where a stunningly beautiful woman of 44, also married, a woman of dubious background, purpose and intention, was waiting for him, knowing or unknowing that this clandestine as well as inappropriate behaviour of his could jeopardize his high position, honor and family life irrevocably?

      He knew that she was working for an American company that sold high-priced military equipments to Korea, and she knew he was one of the key high-ranking government officials who had decisive power and influence on the final decision. Huge sum of money was at stake in the deal, not only for the government and the company but also for both of them. Two interests met and consequently they met in a hotel room all alone.

      Fortunately or unfortunately for the man the unusual beauty of the woman complicated the matter. The man was attracted to or seduced  by the woman, and either he approached her actively or she him to fulfill their own purpose. The story would have ended here as a scene of soap opera in which sex, money and power are the regular menu, and if it did we would have had the feeling of dj vu, and I would  not be enticed into writing this essay. But very unexpectedly there appeared several billets-doux written by the Minister of Defense of Korea to the lobbyist woman implying that he was in love with her. With the appearance of these tender documents the sordid and stark bribery scandal that required only the judicial probe suddenly lost its great impetus and turned my attention to one of the oldest, incomprehensible, and unanswered philosophical as well as psychological questions in life: love.

      Love ? You say it is love ?  What kind of love is that? You may well ask or even protest. It is just a dirty-old-man's lust towards a mellow middle-aged woman, well, very attractive and charming, admittedly more pleasing than his devoted but definitely less charming wife at home. What else can it be other than an immoral and dishonest sexual flirtation, a momentary diversion and digression from the humdrum everyday life of his? Definitely there is no room for love. Love needs blooming youth, finer ground and purer climate to sprout and prosper, you say.

      What is it then, let me ask you, that impelled or compelled a man in such a high position and awful public responsibility, a man of such intelligence, of rigorous military training and discipline, of moral integrity, (without which how could he be chosen as Minister of Defense among so many brilliant candidates and competitors?) and more than anything else, a man of advanced age of 60, to sit quietly down at his desk all alone, and take time to compose those emotional lines full of affection and kindness that bring us all back to the highschool days when our faces were peppered with nasty pimples? What is it then that made him suddenly so childish, so innocent, or so foolish enough to leave a written evidence behind that would surely incriminate him of his misbehaviour or wrongdoing, when the affair has been brought to light? Without evidence no crime stands in a democratic country. He must be mad or crazy, you may say, but I would like to say with confidence that he was definitely in love with the woman at the moment at least.

      Falling in love is one of the most illogical phenomena in our reasonable world. It defies any man's reason and intellect. It contradicts any philosopher's explanation, any moralist's advice, or any scientist's analysis or theory. There is nothing rightly thought or rightly written on this matter of love that is not a piece of the person's experience. Only one of the Greek mythologies supplies a plausible answer. A god of love, Cupid, a naked winged boy with a bow and arrows, blindly hails his arrows among the fleeting generation of mankind for his fun. The random victims of his mischievous play are the lovers. Once you are stricken by the arrow, you have to deal with quite a new and strange emotion that you have not hitherto expected nor experienced. This supernatural power of love makes you forget what you are: your age, position or responsibility. It does not recognize time nor place. It is so strong and intense that in some extreme cases it makes man despise his trite mortal condition and find immortality in it. Man often dies for love.

      Love comes to all without notice, and conquers all. I experienced it when I was in the 6th grade in the elementary school, but very fortunately I survived the pain and pleasure of my first love. But very unfortunately, one of the best highschool friend of mine succumbed to this commanding emotion and failed in the college entrance exam and consequently in life. Two years ago one of my colleagues, a professor of philosophy, had an affair with one of his girl students, got caught in the act, sued, divorced, and lost his hard-earned job. Weeks ago it surprised the Defense Minister of Korea when he was at 60. It came to young Romeo and Juliet when they were about 15, and Antony and Cleopatra in their middle age, claiming their lives and kingdoms. It visited 80-year-old Johann Wolfgang von Goethe when he was about to die. It often hits high Catholic priests who had made a stern vow of celibacy. It fell on Mr. Bill Clinton recently at the White House making him blush a lot, who, as far as I know, has the most beautiful and intelligent wife among the leaders of the world.

      Blaise Pascal, French philosopher, was right when he said that our heart had reasons that reason itself could not comprehend. The act of falling in love is definitely one of the matters of heart that refuses our reasonable comprehension. We learn nothing of it from the behaviour of others. We can only be either lucky or unlucky victims of the Cupid's arrows. Who would have married, if he or she could be reasonably concerned with the possible incompatibility, betrayal, separation, or divorce, and what not in marriage? But do we not owe the continuity of human race on the earth ultimately to this perilous pleasure of love?
                                                                                                        (May 22, 2000)