The Three Meanings of Love in Excellent Traditional Chinese Culture

When we say "love", we can vaguely sense that it has a complex and ambiguous meaning. What does love really mean? I think there are three meanings of love. They are different from each other, but they are intertwined.

The first meaning of "love" is to express an emotional state, which refers to an individual's emotional orientation toward the object of his or her love, including liking, longing, attachment, and admiration. This language of love is: "I love you because you give me (or can give me) pleasure and fulfillment. I need you."

For example, a man loves chocolate; a boy falls in love with a girl; a baby loves its mother; and so on. There is a news report that a man fell in love with a girl, confessed his love and was rejected, so he ran into a high voltage line and died. This kind of "love" is selfish, self-centered, and designed to satisfy one's own needs. It actually loves itself.

The second meaning of "love" is that it expresses an intention and an action, which refers to an individual's concern for the object of his love, his devotion, his commitment, and so on, and it is a kind of altruistic thought and behavior. This is the meaning of "love" in the usual context. The language of this love is: "I love you, so I care about you, I'm willing to give to you, and I feel bad when you're not well."

For example, in love, lovers naturally give to each other, even sacrificing for each other, with a sense of selflessness and even nobility. The same is true of parents' love for their children.

Of course, both the love between lovers and the love of parents for their children are a mixture of these two kinds of love, which exist simultaneously to constitute complete love.

There is a story told in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. A visitor approached his coach and said, "I don't love my wife, we've lost that feeling we used to have, what can I do?" The coach said to him, "Go love her." The visitor said, "I'm sorry, I don't love her." The coach said, "I'm asking you to love her. Love is not a feeling, it's an action, understand?"

Here, when the visitor says "I don't love her", he is referring to the first meaning of love, i.e., the visitor doesn't like his wife, and has no more feeling or affection for her. The coach asked the visitor to "love" his wife, which refers to the second meaning of love, i.e., the visitor to care for his wife, for her to pay, and thus create the feeling of love (i.e., the first kind of love).

The third meaning of "love" is the expression of a value and an altruistic action based on that value. It is not about human biological instincts, but is based on human reason and judgment. This meaning of love is implicitly revealed when a person gives "love" to someone he or she "does not love". The language of this love is: "I don't love you, but I promise to give to you."