Love as a JanSport

This is actually my homework for Philippine Literature. I'm sick and this is the only thing my mind could process for now.

Love technically means a strong affection towards other people. It is a feeling of warm personal attachment. But it is not only limited to those definition because every person has his/her own definition of love. Love could be saying “hi” to him every morning, love could be texting her every day, love could be making Dad coffee when he gets home, love could be kissing Mom before going to school. Love is everywhere. But for me, love can never be defined, it is meant to be felt. Well anyway in this task, I would define love in a different way. Love for me is like a JanSport backpack.

As a brief history, JanSport is an American brand of backpacks owned by VF Corporation, one of the world's largest apparel companies^. The company was founded in 1967 in Seattle, Washington by Murray Pletz, who named the company after his wife. But to be specific, I would refer to the latest designs of JanSport bags in the year 2000.

The main reason why I compared love to a JanSport bag is because first we all know that this leading brand of bags comes in varieties of colors and designs. Every year, it produces new designs. Love also comes in different kinds. We have love for a friend, love for family or romantic love and it comes in different intensities depending on a person involved. Many people who use JanSport bags have different tastes when it comes to the design and appearance of the product. The bag reflects the personality of the person who uses it. A girly girl would use one that is overly designed and colored. Simple person would choose the bag with a plain one. A person who seeks for attention would buy the one on neon colors. And so with love, we choose the person we fall in love with based on our tastes and compatibility. It’s either we get along more to the people we mostly have similarities with or we would give more time to know the people who we have great differences with.

Love can also be true or not. There are instances when we think that we are already in love but in the end we’d realize it was just a simple admiration or infatuation. There are times when we feel like we are ready to love seriously but it would end like it was only a game. We get fooled easily because love that is not real has no much difference with that of a true love. The only moment we prove which is which is when we are able to test it in time, which is similar to that of the JanSport bags. There are bags which are branded and original and there are also those which are only imitations. At first, they seem to look almost the same. But as time passes by, we’d be able to see which is real and which is fake because an original JanSport doesn't tear down easily unlike the imitations which only last for few months.

Lastly, a JanSport bag and love resemble each other in a way that in time, it will lose its value because things like these are transitory and are subject to changes every single moment. It would either develop or depreciate its value based on a person’s attitude towards them. A person who is committed to love would treasure every moment of it and would do everything to keep it alive. But a person who is unsure of a certain relationship might break-up anytime. It’s up to the person involved how he/she would take hold of it and how he/she would keep it long lasting.