Love, the Glue of a Celebration Society

A cohesive society is defined by a shared set of values. These values manifest in many different actions large and small, but in a healthy society there is an underlying glue: love. I love what a Celebration Society stands for, and so do our growing cadre of allies. If we didn’t love these values, we wouldn’t do what it takes to see this manifest. (Other strong emotions can also cause cohesion, but not necessarily constructively.)

Anything that’s truly important to a culture can be enriched by understanding and labeling the different flavors of that something. Eskimos have dozens of words for the various forms of H2O that they perceive and use. Each form means something different; something important. It would impoverish their culture to have only a handful of such words, like most of the rest of us use. Eskimos see distinctions in H2O that those of us who view it only as water, ice, steam, hail, humidity, snow, clouds and mist completely miss.

Words, wisely used, connote qualities that are meaningful.

I believe that other cultures, such as the ancient Greeks, were onto something by defining many different flavors of love, each with its own meaning. When we use “love” to represent many different kinds of affection, we impoverish ourselves. What communication skills does a person with only a 500-word vocabulary have? Limited.

On the other hand, a person with a 25,000-word vocabulary has many ways to express nuance and evoke emotions and understanding. If they use this vocabulary as a cudgel to impress people, it’s not helpful. But if they use it with discrimination, it can be beautiful.

Why, then, do we impoverish ourselves by limiting our vocabulary of love? In my view, a Celebration Society will be well-served by identifying areas of human experience and life that are under-represented in modern vocabulary and creating new words and expressions (or reinstating old ones) to remedy the deficiencies. We will be wealthier for it.

I say this as prelude to a small project that I am inspired to start. Since love—in its many flavors and expressions—will be a central aspect of a well-functioning Celebration Society, I want to co-create with allies a special blog. It will be published once, some months from now, and may be repeated.

What is love to you? How has it shown up in your life? Please share an anecdote, 250 words or less, from your own experience.

I’ll start the process by giving an example from my own life. I was eating lunch with my wife Jen and my mother at the Café de France in Denver. We had been served a complimentary dessert of fresh orange slices by Kelly, the gracious waitress. Jen and I were slurping and nibbling our way through the succulent orange slices, each bursting with flavor and an intoxicating scent.

I noticed that only one piece remained in the bowl. Planning to enjoy it, I took care of something else for a moment. When I looked up, starting to reach for it, my wife was eagerly grasping it. Instantly, my desire for the orange switched to pleasure that she would enjoy it.
This is a small story, but as soon as it happened I realized that it represented something significant. When one comes to habitually—even automatically—put another’s welfare ahead of one’s own, that is a kind of love. I am confident that each of us has such stories.