What's In a Kiss?

It’s Valentine's Day tomorrow. In these past decades, kissing would top ll other activities of the day. Perhaps there's more kissing done on Valentine's Day than in any month other than February.

Kissing is a nice expression of human love, whatever kind of love it may be. We kiss our family members to signify our affection for them. We do the same with our close friends.

Of course, lovers kiss, too. And they kiss a lot, indeed - in excessive ways. And there's something about it that doesn't feel quite right to me.

It seems that, in general, romantic kissing has gotten out of hand. We see explicit kissing in movies and on television, with lovers behaving like hungry lions having each other for lunch. And there's no need to mention what it usually leads to.

I come from a rather reserved background. In our family, we rarely kiss each other, even on the cheeks. We simply hold each other's hands to express our joy in meeting again after a long time. The younger ones only kiss the hands of elders, in courteous salutation.

That's why it bothers me that kissing has escalated so much in society nowadays. It bothers me because I know that anything brought to great abundance would somehow diminish its value.

Many things today aren't worth as much as they once were. There's more money in circulation now. The peso isn't worth as much anymore, so we need more of it to avail of the usual goods and services.

Corporations now need more ranking people to run them. Official positions have devalued; having just a president is no longer enough. So there are several vice-presidents, and a CEO (chief executive officer) and a COO (chief operating officer) and many other titles at the top.

We see devaluation in the educational system, too. Many professionals today pursue further studies in order to have more credentials. With the present oversupply of graduates, the value of a college degree seems to have diminished.

Even our language is not spared. For instance, to be sure that we sound sincere enough, a simple "I love you" does not suffice anymore. We need to say, "I truly love you so very, very much."

In the movies, a simple kiss between lovers on the screen used to be sexy enough, an exciting thing to see. This has since changed. Today if the screen couple doesn't kiss down to their throats and then end up in bed, it's a movie for kids.

At parties and other social occasions, people are supposed to do cheek-to-cheek when introduced to one another. I'm uncomfortable with this. I find it awkward to be banging heads with a stranger. My further fear is that I may be too nervous doing it and bang my head too hard on the other fellow's that I'd knock him or her off.

Seriously, I think we're demeaning the act of kissing by doing too much of it or doing it when a handshake would come closer to expressing our good regards for the other person. Well, in the first place, a cheek-to-cheek kiss may not really pass for a kiss, technically speaking, since neither of the lips actually touches either cheek.

You may find me odd for my thoughts. I don't blame you. Anyone who resists a popular trend can certainly seem like a crank. In fact, I'd suspect that you're a crank yourself if you find me okay.

But if, like me, you truly believe that it is right to be discriminating about kissing – then we may kiss to that. A kiss is our most tender gesture. Kissing shall happen out of our pure desire to experience the beautiful eternal encased in these disposable shells we know as our bodies.

There are only a few kisses I treasure. One is when my late father hugged me and kissed my forehead, upon my coming home after many long years of staying away. That one kiss warms me to this day, even if he smelt of liquor when he gave it to me and it happened a long time ago.

Another is the one that my son Krue gave me as I was sending him off to marry a girl in faraway Croatia. He kissed my chin as we were parting at the airport. It felt the same way to me as when his mother kissed me on the lips many, many years before and asked me to breathe into her because she wanted "to sense more of the essential being that you really are."

Those kisses reach the depths of my soul. For I know they were not given for mere physical act or social convention. By those, their givers have bonded with me forever.

Kissing is a very nice custom. I hope it doesn't lose its significance by our abusing it.

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