The colors of love explores the different meanings and perceptions of love in different cultures.
I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you Love I love you I love you Love
It makes humans to the greatest and the most foolish things
An inexplicable feeling that can lift you high up into the clouds or bury you deep into the ground
There are infinite songs inspired by a broken heart
Every movie has some kind of love interest
We spend millions of minutes contemplating what may or may not happen
Countless families are based on this funny thing that we call love
It has endless different meanings for everyone, which made us embark on a quest around the world to discover how love is expressed and what it represents in different cultures and societies
People from dozens of countries are now giving you their perspective of the multiple colors that love can take
Whenever we come into the essence of what it means to be a human being, love comes in
Love is the most important energy of all the universe
Love is like being with someone that you can't imagine being without
I feel that love is this energy that bonds everything together between people, between animals, between plants or between the whole planet
Love is actually a mixture of sadness, efforts and sacrifice
In Urdu we say, it means like we do not do love, it happens
Love is not only between the gods and boys but all over the world
You care about that person, you just don't say the word love love love again, but you feel it and you mean it
You basically care more about this person than about yourself
Love is a choice, it's not a feeling
I found love everywhere because I love myself
Can change my life, can change the economies, can change the world, can change everything
Doesn't matter if you feel it with like with your family or with a partner, but it's the feeling that I want to feel every day
The first that comes in my mind is the opposite of hate
And it's love is opening up, right, rather than shutting down
I think it's a universal energy, you must feel it from inside of you
Love is a very important thing between two or more people that when they meet, they share this sorrow, happiness, joy, and they are ready to help each other
That's why in there it's called love
We were both completely drunk
We both came from another party and we met at four o'clock in the morning and we looked into each other's eyes and made boom, and we just knew, okay, this is it
Then she quit her five-year relationship and she also had three other lovers and she quit that
After five weeks we moved together in my little one and a half room flat and that was 17 years ago
The last day that I was in Kathmandu I couldn't just get on a plane without seeing her and she didn't want to come to take us to the airplane because she said she would be afraid that she would cry if she would see us leave
So I just went to the reception there to the gym to see her face one more time and it was kind of awkward
I said like, hi, yeah, I'm going down
And she was kind of like, almost shocked to see me like, oh, hey, hi, because she didn't expect to see me again
And then I left and we got to the airport and it was very strange because as soon as we lifted off I started feeling this very big loss
I was looking through the airplane window and I saw Kathmandu getting smaller and smaller and I saw her sort of getting smaller and smaller and disappearing almost
So that's actually the exact moment that I realized how much it really meant to me
And then when I got home I found this very long email in my inbox where she told me that not long after I left the gym she actually, without saying anything, she just ran from her office post
She got into a taxi and she was driving to the airport to try and catch up with me
But we already had passed the customs at that point, you know
So we sort of had that moment at the same time, that realization that you can't really choose love, you know
You can't say, okay, I'm not going to love this person, I'm not going to fall in love with this person, let's just be friends
If there's much more than that, it's something you can't deny
So we had a very long distance, we had this long distance relationship, lots of emails, lots of phone calls
At one point we just had to conclude, like, we need to do something with this, otherwise we're going to end up unhappy
So that's how we decided to get married
And so in 2002 we got married here in Nepal
Like everybody said, my late husband is not a romantic kind of man
People would say like very Chinese-oriented and very Chinese-minded
But with our relationship, he changed for better for me and I changed for him also
So this kind of love that brings out the best, I have it for 22 years of my marriage
When we celebrated our 17th anniversary, he just came up with the idea, given me like 17 cards every day since the day our anniversary, first card, second card on the 17th card
And then every day I got 17 gifts
Can you believe that? Who did that? I checked out with my friend and nobody received that
My love story with Sasmita began a few years back when I was living in Melbourne
I was sent her picture in email by my relatives
They wanted to arrange my marriage with her and when I first saw her picture, I thought, this looks like a boring girl
I don't know if I want to marry her
But then there's another side of me that was a bit curious
And then I did a bit of research on Facebook, intensive research
I found her Facebook profile, I added her
And then we became friends on Facebook and we started chatting every day
She had no clue whatsoever that our marriage was being arranged
So for nearly three years, I was chatting with her
I became her friend
And then finally one day she came to know that our relatives were trying to get us married
And then I came back to Nepal from Melbourne because my dad was very sick and everyone was trying to get me married before anything happened to him
We first decided to meet in a cafe
I had been chatting with her for so long, but I had never ever seen her in person
So it was pretty scary experience for me
I waited in the cafe for her
Then it was very, I was very anxious
Like I was, my body language, I was doing this and then I was looking at the entrance and then every time a pretty girl came inside, I was like, oh, is that her? Oh no, that's not her
And then finally she came
She had a lot of makeup on
Obviously she was prepared to impress me
Then we sat down in the cafe, ordered pizza
For nearly two hours, we didn't speak much
I was nervous and so was her and we didn't talk much and we were just eating
And finally after two hours, we started to chat
The first thing she asked me was whether I was being forced to marry, whether it was my decision that I want to marry or not
It was kind of, there was a bit of pressure on me, but still when I saw her, I knew that this was the girl I wanted to be with the rest of my life
So I told her, no, I'm, I'm not being pressurized
I really want to, I think I want to marry you
Then came the next meeting, which was in Garden of Dreams
So that day we were a bit more open to each other
We took lots of pictures because I'm a photographer
I took my camera with me and I spend most of my time taking pictures of us and I still have those pictures
And whenever I look at them, I feel very good
We were both good looking back then
So finally the day of our wedding came because I'm a Hindu
We have a long rituals
My dad also participated
He was very sick, but he got very excited to be the part of the wedding and the rituals, it went on for four days and we're not allowed to have salt also
Anyways, so after the wedding, she came home
We started living our life
2017, our little daughter Mayra was born
Throughout all these ups and downs, she got frustrated many times, but she never left me and we went through it all
Marriage, the first time I remember, I was proud to honor the education that we have, that we must create a family
When I announced to my father how I would like to marry him, he was happy
I know that he can be happy
I think that was a regular thing that I can put one foot in the society
But after one year, one year and a half, love was still good, but the work of the brain, you know, start to communicate the wrong things
And to be always with the same person, sleep in the same bed, eat in the same time, was eating all time
I was just thinking, what will be in another time without her? What I can do without her? What she can do without me? You know, probably we was prisoners of ourselves
My mom, she's now like 72
My dad is 82 and he married two sisters
So I come from a polygamous family and it worked for them
Actually, my mom, my mom got married first and her sister, who was her follower, she was 15 years old
And I think in some ways my mom preferred that my dad marries her sister, they stay well together, they can even share a house, than getting another person from somewhere that maybe they might not be able to live together well
I actually didn't know who was my mom and who was not my mom, who were my mom's kids and who were my sister's mom's kids until when I was like around 13 years
That's when you could know that you were the last born of this mom and the first born is this and second born, blah, blah, blah
So it took, it took us time
We never saw them fighting
We never saw them fighting over anything
I don't know how they managed, but it worked for them and it worked for even other families
But I don't think it can work now because we are in a society whereby you can even kill your sibling if she cheats with your husband
So we actually met on Tinder
That's the first thing what we say because some people would not really say that we met online and it was almost two years ago that we met and it started pretty amazing and it's still pretty amazing
Things got very fast
So I actually suggested going out on the 1st of May on Patrine, which is very symbolic
And from there it just went straight to this point where we were immediately in relationship
We fell for each other and it just felt very natural even though it was kind of fast
I was really confused and I just put myself into one category, but now I'm happy to say that for me love is everywhere
I could love any kind of person
That's why I consider myself as bisexual
We became friends and I think we mistook the friendship for something else and that's about it
I really don't feel this much passion towards it
I see it as a big lesson in my life because I had all these expectations that I wanted to get married instead of falling in love and then seeing what might happen
So this is part of my learning process
I think this is why at this point I'm in my love story with myself
I am open
I wish to have a partner, but I also don't want to do something as silly as marrying somebody I'm not in love with
For me right now, I feel the kids are a little older and there's more space and I start to value the time we have and we start to reconnect more romantically, let's say
But at the same time, there was times when all you think about is like, my God, what's keeping us together? Why aren't we divorced? And then a couple years passed and you're like, God, thank you for this
And then you're like, God, thank God those dark times didn't get the best of us
So is that love? I don't know
It's just like day to day, you know
My mom arranged her for me
Far away, about 350 kilometers far away from here
She lives there, but her parents, like my mother-in-law, my mom knows
So she goes there and then she says, okay, I have my son
So please, I want your daughter for my son
So my mother-in-law says, okay, I will come to your home and I see your son
Then she came here with her sisters
Then she showed me and I show her Taj Mahal as well
She told my mom, okay, I will give you my daughter for your son
I think in Nepal, once the girls start having the age of like 17, 18, it's the kind of that is a marriageable age
The parents start like, you know, giving you all the photographs and then people start taking interest on the girls or even to the boys like, hey, I have this suitable guy or girl you have
So I start having that also for my parents, but all the time I was saying like, no, I don't want to get married
I don't want to get married
First, let me finish my study and this thing
So when I fell in love with my first love, you know, my parents was, especially my dad was really, really angry
So I told them that, okay, if you don't permit, okay, I'll stay like, I will remain unmarried for the rest of my life, you know, so can you handle that? A lot of people say that love is feeling
I don't really agree with that because feeling you can fit, you know, the feeling can go when you love someone because, oh, it's so beautiful
He's, oh, he's so macho, you know, wow, it's incredible, but that's only feeling
But when you decide to love someone
Because like feelings die down, but like, if you want to be with that person for a lifetime, you have to choose to love that person over and over again, regardless of everything
Because if you don't kiss it, the feelings just like, oh, today you're like, oh, but like the next day it'd be like, just want to kill that person or it fades away
Yeah
So like you have to choose to love the person like intentionally in spite of everything you learn to love and you learn to you learn to love and you learn to understand the other person
But I think it's kind of forcing yourself because you don't have another option
Nowadays, I feel like arranged marriage is much better than love marriages
Because there is a family involved in love marriages, there is no family
Simple as that
Nothing else
Because marriage is a lifetime commitment
So you should be, you should be free to marry whoever you feel like this is the person that I want to marry
I cannot exactly say about the arranged marriage, but if the person who understands love for him, arranged marriage or love marriage does not matter because he's made for love and he'll love any person who comes in his life
It is pretty tricky because there are expectations from your family that you marry to someone from your own community
But then you can't help falling in love with someone
When you're in love, you're in love
In some countries, it's still common
And sometimes we are making jokes with my friend that if we won't find someone, we're going to ask our parents to arrange something like that for us
I can't really like, because I'm so far away of this kind of situation
Like my parents, that would be so awkward if my parents would be like, here, this guy, what do you think? I would trust them, but I would trust them for the same reasons they would never do it
With family, it's like in our blood
It's already given by the God
You cannot make it
You cannot destroy it with the family, especially your parents and kids and kids like your siblings
So for those, it's like eternal
It's like already loaded in our genes
I have a strong love, very strong love to my family and a very strong love that is different from my strong love to my husband, because he's the person that I'm going to stay together with
But my family will always be there for me
If something happens between me and my husband, I will always go back to my family
So the love that I have for my family is quite huge
Then the one I have for my husband, your family always give you support and stay behind
If we do something wrong, our family, first thing he tell us, no, do not do that
This family is very important
That's our religious
Tell us the love is very important
Your family is very important
Also, more friend you have, more love you have
Yes
And the love for the mother, you cannot compare with any love that is the mother and the father, because they brought you in this world and you didn't know anything
And they are the ones who taught you how to love one another
Well, I am a son of a single mother
So I think that has a big influence on how I express love
Because, you know, I basically only had the the women, feminine figure to show me how to do it
But I think if someone loves you 10% of what your mother loves you, that is love
The, you know, you have an instinctual love for your mother
You take for granted a lot of what love is, I think, you know, throughout your life
You just know you're connected, let's say to your mother and everybody to whatever you have
I mean, that feels beyond explanation, which for me would be a mother love type thing
And then to have the boys in a way, it's that same kind of eternal instinct that takes away thought from love
It doesn't, there's no question
There's like a, I would die, you know, and I'm not saying that kids don't think, oh, I'll die for my mother
So it's even beyond that, you know, when you know that when you know that you'll give your life up in a heartbeat for your child, that's something that you've most people have never experienced before, at least I haven't
And so for me, what else is love, you know, when it reaches that level where you would give your life in a heartbeat and you know it, you wouldn't have to think you would do it
So my dad died and we we grew up with our mom and well, our mom did well
So even if she didn't manage to educate me, but I really give her credit because she fought so much to raise us
That's why I always say I'm a son of a woman
And I respect women better than anything
My belief is if there is no woman, you can't be who you are
Because my parents didn't love each other
And all the, my mom always told me that the only like people she loves is me, my brother and like her parents
And that's it
And she never loved anybody else
So for me, like the love was only the feeling that I kind of got from her
For a long time, I had this idea that like, I probably will be with someone for stability and not for long
But then I met Tomas and it kind of changed
From the very beginning, I immediately realized that like, no, that's like, it's not the same feeling
I must say that I grew up in a family only with my mom, because my mom and my dad, they did not really spend much time together
But even though it was a bit rough in the beginning, I still grew up with my siblings and with my grandparents in the same house
So I guess I was surrounded with all types of love, like love, hate, love, respect, and love, need
And I think it just really taught me to love, no matter how different or far the person is
I come from a very loving family where I've always been shown, I mean, the example of caring for each other, of enjoying time together, giving each other independence
I think that's a healthy love, giving each other space, trusting each other
But being there, being very close, I mean, being Colombian, like we're always hugging and kissing and like touching, like my mom is always like, oh, I miss them
So that's like my first love story
And it still continues, thankfully
And we cannot think like you guys do or she do
We think, how can we satisfy our brothers or our parents? We think of them more than ourselves
So it's been very difficult for me to manage all those things
Yeah, maybe in that way, my parents influenced me since I see this like really nice relationship that they have
And maybe I see how my dad is to my mom, and that makes me look for, you know, that type of person and my partner
I didn't make a family in one way, because one soldier cannot take more than seven kilos in the front line
And one child is important to be with him
I don't want to be too much human
I want to think that I'm, like everybody, extraterrestrial
So from my background, I had a really, really terrible childhood
And so my mother was an alcoholic, and I was basically alone since I was three years old
And I, you know, I got myself out of the deepest shit, basically, and I know how
And I know how powerful meditation and positive neuroscience and psychology is
You know, we all have, you know, our package, which we carry from our parents, where they have lived, how they have been happy or unhappy
And we have kind of like developed a reaction towards that
Also, how we experienced our original family, how stable our relation to our parents have been
And in most cases, in our Western cultures, this stable base is not there for most people
And so we have, we develop fears of intimacy
We develop all kinds of obstacles
And you need to become aware how these kind of patterns you have developed are influencing the partner you choose, how it influences, you know, like how you are in relationships
And it influences how happy you become
Their parents influenced them, and their parents influenced them, and voila, I've been lucky that I have mother and father
I know people who don't have that
I think the older I am, the more I realize how foolish a person can be sometimes, how ungrateful because it's easy to block yourself, to have this armor around you and call your parents, okay, that's their fault, you know, or it's her fault, you know, the way I am
But first of all, you got to start with yourself first, right, inside of you and to forgive yourself first for feeling this way
That's the way it is
And I love my parents for what they've given me
And maybe sometimes we don't show them enough
But that's a good reminder, actually, right now
I think my parents taught me everything about life and not in a very orthodox way, let's say
So my parents are very dysfunctional
And I think like every parent are, because parents are just kids like us
But now they have kids to take care of
So my mom was very young
She was 16
And I was her second child
So she has no structure to really deal with kids because she was a kid herself at that age
So she taught me a lot about what life really means when you're suffering and being able to see through other people's eyes
My father was a very harsh man
He had a lot of issues growing up and he got blind after 22 in a mistake in a surgery
So he also was a very, he had a very heavy heart
And I was a child and he did not know also how to take care of a child
So it was a quite interesting childhood
And he taught him a lot about forgiveness, I guess, in a, not in a talking way, but in a later life when I learned how to forgive him, because I thought that I could never forgive him for who he was until I really see who he was for reality and really accept that he's just a man
He's just a boy
He's just a guy
And he's, there's no guilt
There's no blame
There's no evil
Like me, I can say the love I have for God is stronger than every other love that exists
I have my qualification for men that he needs to fear God
He needs to be honest, because if you fear God, then you always put like the right priority in your life
Like you will put God first, then your wife, then your children, then after that, your work
I think that's very fundamental in Mary
There is no, actually, there is no religious impact on love
Love is else
Love is completely different
Love is only love
There is no religion kind of like him
I love my religion so much and for me that if somebody loves me and I want him truly love what I like
The universal message of Islam is love humans, love all the humans
When I practice that, when I felt like, can I forgive this person who has done this thing with me? Then it was like Prophet had said, say to that person, I forgive you just for Allah
And when I said that something to person, it was a different feeling
It was, I cannot do it if I was not in love with Allah or God
And due to that love, it's a bond with the humans
I think a lot of people seek religion to seek love, actually
And I do feel that some people can really find that
Like you see the love and passion that Muslims have and how much they practice and how much love and effort they put in that
So I do feel there's a lot of love involved in that
You see the Thai culture is such a giving culture, a loving, open-hearted culture
And it's linked to Buddhism and even Christians
You see a lot of love and compassion in them
And sometimes they actually find this through their religion because this is the only path that they can find it
Sometimes they try in many other places, but they cannot reach love
The Buddhists not teach about love
They just teach like, if you do something good for someone, you will get something, some good back
You give what you get, you get what you give
I believe in a path of endless connectedness
I believe there's something greater than us
Okay, this is going to sound very strange, but in Star Wars you have the force
Well, I believe it's something like that
If people would talk about God, then that is God for me
It is a feeling, it is an atmosphere
And you have to feel it, you have to be in touch with it, and then you have to grab it
When everything came on my path, when I moved to Uganda, I got two job offers
I got my girlfriend there, my biggest happiness
For me, that I got those two job offers when I was looking at them, that for me, that was the work of that atmosphere, that kind of God in that way
There is a way that prayer can help in a situation whereby things are not working out when it comes to relationship
Like you can pray
I pray for my relationship, I pray for my husband, I pray for my family
And when we have moments of difficulties, it works with prayers
God, I know you're there
Please have such and such a challenge
Please help me
So which means God is there and things work out as well
The love that I give out to God is very different from the love that I give out to my fellow friend
Yeah, because sometimes I can only trust God, because I know God cannot tell someone what I've told him
He only tells me
Religious people, they always have a therapist with them, which is God
So they both believe very strongly
They both put a lot of intention into it
Actually, I'm not a religious person
I was born in a Hindu family, but I'm not a Hindu
I mean, culturally, I'm a Hindu, but philosophically, I'm like an atheist
In India, religion plays a most important role in everyone's life, and we are still struggling with that
So maybe in the future, we'll get some hope
But as of now, I don't see that a same-gender couple can be considered here
Religion divides a human
Religion is the reassociation of criminality
Love is God himself
If you must give a name to God, I think that the name of God is love
And his energy is the most important
I love myself, but I also hate myself
It's not so easy
Well, usually I wake up and I think I'm amazing
Let's get that straight
But no, sometimes you act not according to your beliefs or moral compass because of something, maybe external factors, or I don't know
It depends
But then if you're the only one responsible for that, then you are angry at yourself
So I'm just trying to be a better version of myself every day
So when I fail, I'm disappointed
Sometimes, especially for women, it can be a bit difficult to love yourself because of the advertisement and all the things that we are supposed to be because we are supposed to be the perfect mother, the perfect student
But at the same time, we have to be funny
We have to be all the time happy
And really, we are human and it's not possible to every one of us
And this is why sometimes very women can feel bad
But I think that we have to understand that this is a prototype and we don't have to follow this all the time because we are human
Above just women or something or some ideal you need to follow
Everybody says to me, like, I love the skin
I love that
It makes me think, oh, this is the way, this is what I want
And now I love to look at the mirror
I started to take care of myself
That was the first step and starting to accepting myself
And in that also stop judging myself and what I'm doing
I'm think about why I love him, but I don't love myself
And then I have to do anything for myself
I broke up with him and I'm do anything for make my life is better
I think I've accepted it
I love men because I have accepted myself
Till the time you don't love yourself, you can't accept anything
I loved myself more than anyone
After my mother, I loved myself
And that's why I think it's okay for me to be in a relationship with a man
Because at the end, it's me who need to be happy in life
A tribe called Shipibo in the north jungle of Pukalpa because I was struggling with addictions and I wanted to get sober
Clean myself from all the shit I've been doing for the last couple of years in this concrete jungle
And I did that, you know, and I found I found gratitude
I found certain joy
I found playfulness again within myself
But also I found a lot of darkness
I found something that I had to face with that I've been afraid to meet your demons
If I remember at those times where I was feeling really, really, really low and I found this stream of love inside of me, I felt happy
I liberated myself, you know, from from the past
It's giving me something that I can always lean on, always be there for myself, which I didn't know, which I never knew I could be there for myself, you know, the way how I experienced back in the jungle
I think growing up in this society, I think we learn in some fucked up way to not love ourselves
We learn that that person is better, that person that do this better
And it's a constant input for you to not love yourself
This is why I think in our society, it's really rare to hear about self love and you see a lot of people hating themselves
And that was also not different for me
I also had a lot of issues of loving myself
For many reasons, for not accepting my physical appearance or my mistakes or my flaws, I could never understand why I had so much hate towards myself as well, because that's not natural
That's not something that should really happen, right? You are the one that you have to live with for the rest of your life
And if you hate yourself, how can you live with yourself? You know, so then I started going deep into it
And then I found that I had a lot of judgment about myself and like not very good ones
I was not good enough
I was not handsome enough
I was not cool enough
I was not nice enough
And I did not do good enough
But then after a while, I start going even deeper into it and seeing who I really am and what really matters, because most of the things that I was judging myself for, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day
It matters your heart
Like this is me
This is my physical appearance
This is my intellectual
This is my mind
And this is my beliefs
And this is this is me
And I was not good enough
I was not good beliefs
And as soon as I had this radical acceptance of everything that I am, I started slowly changing things that I thought that I could improve
And things just start improving itself or of some effort
But just after I really accepted who I was, who I am right now
And that was a love story that started with a lot of hate and then slowly became into friendship and now became unconditional love
I left my goals aside
I left a lot of who I was aside to support what he was doing
And of course, I moved to another country where I had to learn the language and that put me in a different position
And we we thought it would be easier
But it wasn't about my career and about my things
But it was this thing that I had to lose my freedom completely
The things that happened in the relationship were not my conscious choice
I got into it, but it wasn't like I want to not have a career
I want to be in a position where I don't speak the language and I'm struggling
You are constant content, constant contact with people here
Even though you are staying in a house, you hear like dog barking, you hear like people
So you feel safe, you know
But when you are in Europe or in America, you don't hear anyone
So you feel like you are unknown, you know
And that kind of lonely list was really, really hard for me
So I think that was the things I sacrificed
I think that in life, sometimes you need to sacrifice many things for love
And I think that if I really feel a strong love with someone, because I think that you really know when this person is really special for you
I think I will do really crazy things
I will move to Australia, to United States
I don't know
I will move to anywhere
I will get my job
I will do many, many things if I know that this is the person that I want to be with
Because I think that love is the strongest feeling you can have in your life
So you have to sacrifice
I think it's worth it
What I do sacrifice to have my girlfriend here, my life here and my job, are definitely my family and my friends back home
And that is that is a trade-off
And that can be quite painful at moments
I'll sacrifice myself
My music is like I'm married to my music before being married to anyone else
So it's me
Anyone that I welcome, that I introduce to my life, they also have a little piece of me
For example, if you like to have some dress or some makeup and this guy don't want that you have some dress or some makeup, you don't have to sacrifice some little things because it's little, little, little
But after it's become a big thing and at the end it's not you
So you don't have to sacrifice anything for love
But if I think about family, I think that you can sometimes sacrifice something
Because I sacrifice, I think, some things for my family because my family is really important for me
So we have to take care of each other
So when I was working, my plan was to educate my brother
So the money I could work for, I could pay it for my brother's school fees because I didn't want him to be like me
I really sacrificed a lot
But to me, what I did, I did it because I meant it
I decided to do it
My wife, she's loved for me and she has sacrificed a lot
But, well, we are still struggling to meet our ends and make a living and pay our debt
But still she never complains
I know that I haven't been able to buy her expensive gifts or take her to the movies, take her to cafe
We are content with whatever little we have
So I feel like love has sacrificed for me rather than me sacrificing for the love
Maybe I would just say that with the LGBTQ community, it could be very often that you have to sacrifice something
For instance, I had to sacrifice kind of relationship with my dad because he did not accept it as well
But generally, I don't think I ever sacrifice something
And not in that way that I would really lose it and I wanted it back
For me, it was always this thing to go for
For me, I guess the family thing as well, because only my mother and my brother know
But I don't want to hide it and I don't want to be dirty and coming home and still be like, I don't have a girlfriend
It's such a bullshit
So like, it's their decision to accept it or not
But if they don't, it will be definitely like a sacrifice for myself, for my relationship with Palash
In our culture, it's like a payment when you get a girl from one family
When it comes to payment of dowry for us, we do like you can pay with the livestock, cows, ships and all that, or you can pay money
For my husband, he has not done it because he's like buying me from my family, which he says it's terrible
But then I've sacrificed to be with him even without payment of this because I love him, because I feel good staying with him
Yes, he's Italian
Just yesterday, I was talking with a guy at my work and he was telling us this and he was like, you know, we pay the dowry because then we own them
And just like so easily, you know, like the word owning was like there, you know, and that for me, it's a big kind of like a whole contradiction of how I perceive love
I feel sad to my family because they want to have a son
I'm lucky because my dad, they are not so, they have open mind, they can understand something easy
If he wants to know something, he will ask
I did cut any kind of contact with my real dad, with my Belgian dad
He was a very toxic figure for me, so I had to make that decision when I was 13
And I'm sure that in a way he did love me, but this was just very different than from my other family side in which I was very open
So I did sacrifice that for my own form of happiness
I must say that I'm a really happy man because I live a really simple life
Wow, I don't think that there is something concrete that makes you feel happy, makes you, makes me feel happy, but I think that finally you are happy when you wake up in the morning and you have peace in your mind
When I have my own kids with the person I'm married to right now, that will be complete for me
I don't think I'll need anything else
Like loving someone and having this sense of home brings this state of happiness
For me, definition of happiness is if you make some other person happy
I think we are taught different ideas of what love is and different ideas of what happiness is, because happiness can be very like socially imposed on us
Yeah, like if you're married and you have children, that means you're happy
But also I feel like my generation of women, we've been told about freedom and like freedom makes happiness
And yes, you want a partner, but you need a career and you need all these things
I still look for the way how I can make my family happy
And I don't show them, of course, they always think I'm happy, but to me, they are innocent
They don't know
I'm okay
They know I'm happy, but to me personally, I'm not happy
Actually, I pretend to show them that I'm happy with them, but I'm not
You know, a lot of people mix joy with happiness
And they think this kind of feeling of joy and good feelings is what happiness is, is that you're absolutely 100% okay with who you are, what you're doing and how your surrounding is, even when your surrounding is difficult
That's the key of happiness, that you're not attached to the outside, because most people are only happy when their outside is positive, and they are unhappy when the outside is negative
And for me, happiness is that your mind is so independent and so free that you can be in the worst circumstances
In the morning, early morning, to watch the early morning and tell thanks, I send my love to all planet, to all universe, to everybody that I don't know
Love is like a drug, you know, it's amplifier of feelings
If you're in love and you're happy, you are, you're in ecstasy of happiness
It's like you feel like you're cuddled by clouds, you know, floating over the world, just with this special person
No one else exists, you're just stuck in the universe together
But if you're in love and you're sad, you're devastated
It's, it's, you know, you want to be happy, you want to be happy, you want to be happy, you want to be happy, it's, it's, you know, you want to cut out your heart and throw it away because you don't need it anymore, so
Before I found somebody, that means you, that I had a very intimate relationship with, that I could share this, so even before I met Vlad, I think that I had amazing group of friends and a purpose that I was really proud of, but still something was missing
Like, let's say that all day I was happy, but then during the night I felt kind of sad that one part of the puzzle is still missing for me
So I don't think that happiness is always connected to love, but in my case, it like was connected to love because it was the missing piece
Love is everywhere
In our dreams, in our hopes, in the good memories as in the bad ones
Waking up every morning feeling loved brings a tranquility of being
Love is timelessness when it unites two lucky souls for eternity
Life can slowly separate people who love each other
Even if the sea erases on the sand the footprints of broken love, there will forever be a mark in each of them of the passage of love
We are surrounded by love in countless ways, yet societies point out what divides the world
Whether you're atheist or Jewish, gay or transsexual, whether you're rich or poor, a single mom or a CEO, from Maasai Mara to China, we always look for the differences
We have to stop looking for what divides us and keep searching for what unites the world
Love
I love you
Audio:
Subtitles:
The colours of love
The opium war
A Natural Way
Transhumance. Routes of a disappearing life
Anxious America
The Rivers
Regression Beyond Death
The Holy Mountain
Contacted by extraterrestrials
Magic Pantonio