Love as a Verb

On the Dao, "Loving" over "Love," and the Gerundal Nature of Happiness...

The entire venerable canon of 5,000 years worth of Chinese religious philosophy could be reduced to a single syllable—

Dao (道)

Translators have had trouble with this word. They usually translate 道 into English as "the Way."

The confusion stems from the fact that in Mandarin Chinese there is no distinction between nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc. as there are in most Indo-European languages. The same word often means a ____ (noun), to ____ (verb), ____-ing (gerund), ____-ingly (adverb), etc.


The same written character 道, for example, means variously:

direction / way / road / path / principle / truth / morality / reason / skill / method / Dao (of Daoism) / to say / to speak / to talk / classifier for long thin stretches, rivers, roads etc / province of Korea (do 도)/ former province of Japan (dō)

The Daoist concept of Dao is neither noun, nor verb, nor adjective--but something that both encompasses and transcends grammatical category. Translating it into English as the abstract noun "the Way," however, tends to give precedence of the noun over the active verb aspects of 道. A more accurate, but ungainly, translation might be "Way-ing." The verbification of nouns in a gerundal "-ing" is the closest that English gets to this "active noun" state.

OK, so what?

Consider the following cliche:

"Love conquers all."

Everyone who reads this with the jaundiced eye of the early 21st Century (half-)knows it's a farce. With divorce rates pushing 60%, financial disaster and unemployment putting strains on relationships, and a Millennial Generation putting off marriage later and later, love clearly doesn't conquer all.

In the phrase "Love conquers all," the word "Love" serves as a subject noun. "Conquers" is the verb, and "all" the direct object of the verb. "Love" is an abstract noun, meaning it's meaning is already elusive, yet universalized. There is only one Love, and yet we are all expected to approach it from individual, subjective angles in the messy realm of romantic reality.

The abstract noun "Love" has been written about endlessly over the eons, and yet who can really explain it to the uninitiated? Like most abstract nouns ("courage," "integrity," "good," "evil," "hope," "change"), "Love" is impossible to codify. We approach the Platonic Form of Love from very divergent angles, all the while unsure whether such an objective and eternal Platonic Form of Love exists. Does Evil exist? Does Good exist? We wonder.

Furthermore, our contemporary ideas of Love and romantic marriage are actually quite new. It was only in the last two centuries that young Western people set out on the journey of finding "the One." You would look for a perfect match, for "compatibility," and then enter a long courtship (designed to reveal or disprove said compatibility), before sealing the deal with marriage. Keep in mind that this approach was compatible with the dominant 18th and 19th Century zeitgeist of rational progress, of the perfectibility of human life through applied reason. Dating/courtship was/is as a "scientific trial," with Love as the "hypothesis," and having weathered the double-blind trials of dating, Love would transition through Theory to Law (marriage).


"Cindy, we've been 'hooking up' for some months now. I'd like to take it to the next level—and ask you out on a date."

Since then, we've been a bit disappointed by this naive faith in the transcendental potential of pure, scientific reason. As well, we've had a rather severe hangover from the 19th Century iteration of romantic marriage. High divorce rates, rampant adultery, and a multibillion-dollar marriage therapy and self-help industry portend this restiveness.

We now "shop" to "purchase" the perfect mate, just as we'd compare the labels of cereal boxes in the supermarket. Just as the salesmen in an electronic store assures us that we'll get years of bliss out of our "state-of-the-art" flatscreen television (which is immediately woefully obsolete the minute it exists the showroom), so too does the modern Romance Establishment assure us that with enough (expensive) dating, an (expensive) extravagant enough wedding, further consumer purchases of (expensive) gifts for holidays, and (expensive) couples therapy sessions, we'll be happy perpetually. If it doesn't work out, it's because you purchased a lemon. Divorce—despite its heavy emotional and financial toll—is the answer. Don't worry though, there are (expensive) lawyers for that.



Now, there's even talk of the "starter marriage," with planned obsolescence contained in its very design. Laboring under the rusted illusion of "till death do we part," we instead lease-to-buy. Nobody has ever achieved eternal bliss from a consumer purchase at the mall, and we're all quite accustomed to "shopper's guilt." Why then, do we think applying the same logic to Love will assure eternal romantic bliss? Why do we so quickly ignore the other (true) cliche that "marriage takes work"? Why do we believe in the shocking improbable notion that "the perfect match" exists, that we will find that match out of 6.96 billion people in a romantically active window of 5-15 years (despite limits of time and geographic distance), and that initial match will effortlessly weather the seasons of one's life without any maintenance?

Even the man who loves his vintage 1970 Dodge Charger has to (and loves to) spend hours maintaining it in the garage every weekend. This is known in the common parlance as a "labor of love." This vintage auto enthusiast loves his car, labors out of love to maintain it, and remains ever-in-love with its well-oiled engine. Let us not disregard this man's sincere affection for this object. His is the same love a gardener feels for his garden or an artist for his canvas. His relationship to his car is categorically different to the recent-purchaser-of-the-top-of-the-line-flatscreen's. And, in his approach, we get closer to the idea of the Dao of Loving.


Loving—hard!

Let's consider that we've asked the wrong question about Love. We may never know what "Love" is (if it exists as such), but most of us are quite familiar with what "loving" is, what it is "to love." We know it when we experience it.

So, let us amend the aforementioned cliche to this:

"Loving conquers all."

Again, we return to that magic "-ing"—the gerund. The gerund is both abstract noun and verb. It is both active and static. It is both existent and emerging. The gerund is a process. Dare we say the gerund is the true nature of "the Way?"

If "Love" fails more often than not to overcome the more mundane challenges of personal finance, career, day-to-day dispute, cultural difference, friends and extended family, perhaps it is "loving" that is really the panacea for our ills of loneliness and strife?

The dictionary defines "loving" as the following:

feeling or showing love / warmly affectionate / fond [ex: loving glances]

"Loving" is both a adjectival result ("warmly affectionate" and "fond") and a verbal means ("feeling or showing love"). When you are "loving," therefore, you become "loving." What paradoxical magic!

For a concrete example of what Loving looks like day-to-day, consult this excellent piece in The New York Times Magazine on the Obamas's marriage.
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I hope you've loved this post, readers, because I've loved writing it.