21. Build your Vocabulary
What does love mean?
I’m not quite sure when I started having a “good vocabulary” or how to quantify how good mine is but I can tell you I’ve realized the benefits of understanding a wide variety of words over time.
Because language is how we come to interface with the world, it’s possibly one of the most important skills we can build throughout our lives.
Not only do words expand our view of the world, our understanding of how words are formed (in English, anyway) can also foster new breakthroughs in thought.
This is why I often look up definitions as well as a words etymology, or their origin and history.
There are thousands of articles and resources a Google search away for how to build your vocabulary, so for now I'll share a deeper dive on one word the English language needs to use thousands of others to help us understand: Love
What is love? Poets, musicians, husbands, wives, Hollywood, animals, scientists, scribes, and gods across time have shown just how deep and shallow one could go with that question.
Here's a succinct, practical -but still magical- way to think about it from Barbara Fredrickson who wrote the book Love 2.0:
“The new take on love that I want to share with you is this: Love blossoms virtually anytime two or more people—even strangers—connect over a shared positive emotion, be it mild or strong.
To put it in a nutshell, love is the momentary upwelling of three tightly interwoven events: first, a sharing of one or more positive emotions between you and another; second, a synchrony between your and the other person’s biochemistry and behaviors; and third, a reflected motive to invest in each other’s well-being that brings mutual care.”
Let me just say, I REALLY love that quote.
Because the word Love has such heavy lifting to do in English, I've always found it helpful to review "the four loves" C.S. Lewis shares in his book of the same name:
Storge (storgē, Greek: στοργή) is liking someone through the fondness of familiarity, family members or people who relate in familiar ways that have otherwise found themselves bonded by chance.
Philia (Greek: φιλία) is the love between friends as close as siblings in strength and duration. The friendship is the strong bond existing between people who share common values, interests or activities.
Eros (erōs, Greek: ἔρως) for Lewis was love in the sense of "being in love" or "loving" someone.
Charity (agápē, Greek: ἀγάπη) is the love that exists regardless of changing circumstances. Lewis recognizes this selfless love as the greatest of the four loves, and sees it as a specifically Christian virtue to achieve.
“Love thy neighbor as you love thyself”
- Jesus
How many other words, when examined, flipped on their head, polished, interrogated and expounded upon could provide us a greater understanding of not only what the word itself means, but what they could possibly mean for us?
