go unspoken,
Sometimes we let our love
go unexpressed,
Sometimes we can't find words to tell
our feelings,
Especially towards those
we love the best.
I love you.
These three words seem so small, and yet it carries everything. It is not just a mere expression that can be said haphazardly. Rather, it is something larger than what people think it is. In saying these words, the lover throws himself to the beloved, hoping that he be accepted inasmuch as he is willing to accept her. These words carry not only a moment, but a huge part of one's life, which ranges from several fragmented moments of existence, up to even a whole lifetime. These three words either make or break, prove or disprove, flourish or fade. These three words can turn the direction of life and change the whole course of existence, giving it greater meaning and significance.
The moment we speak these words is a moment of committing. It is a sign of self-giving that makes everything explicit, bringing everything that is within out of the self and offering it to the other to take.
But then, what if it wasn't said? What if everything is there, the feelings, the willingness and effort towards self-giving, the connection, the relationship that could grow, except that no one could get it out and say it out loud?
The many complications of relationships today show us the rift between words and actions. There are those that continue to flourish, yet days go by without the presence of those three words. There are even those who cannot completely say it, or just half-heartedly whisper it to themselves, because doing such would put everything on the line.
In these moments, could the actions be enough to justify the presence of love? Or do they have to be spoken in order to make its presence evident?
And perhaps, the biggest question: do we really need saying it? Or could it be just passed over in silent, wordless expressions and significations?
Words and Love
Just what exactly is the significance of words and spoken expressions in human existence and experience? Are they really necessary in expressing what we mean and what we feel?
Our life tells us that words are the only means towards direct communication, of explicitly, for lack of a better word, saying what we mean. They make obvious what is intended, and bring what is inside out in the open. It is meant to be said because it wants to be received, to be interpreted, and to be accepted. Words are the most direct and explicit form of human communication, such that one could not fully express what one would want to.
Words are such because they not only point to meaning, but more than that, they carry meaning themselves. Words have particular, significant meanings inevitable and necessarily attached to them, and these meanings come in various contexts, from various speakers, and spoken alongside various emotions and feelings. One could not even say that we can speak a word that is devoid of context, that is "pure meaning" in itself, for it carries the way the speaker understands that which the words point to and carry.
If that is the case, words carry more than plain meanings. It carries with it the context, the intention, and the signification of the speaker. When we speak of something, we do not just point. Rather, we carry with us the way we perceive and understand things, the way we feel about what we talk about. And to put it in the larger context of human communication, we can say that we carry something within us, and more than that, we carry ourselves when we put things in words.
Such is the importance of words that things have to be said in order to be understood and, in the process, understand as well. Thus, it goes to say that it is in words that love is fully and explicitly expressed.
And when we wholeheartedly say, "I love you," we carry more than the meaning of these words.
To say these three words is to show that all the moments spent and all the emotions poured over the other actually mean something, and because for the lover it has meaning, it is through words that he wants the other to know that everything is meaningful. In the moment of saying these words, past experience is relieved in the present, which projects all of these in the future, These words withstand time, for in every moment it is said, everything collapses and is brought together in that single moment of saying it.
Also, to say these words is to express hope. It is a way of showing that despite everything that happened and will happen, all of these mean something, and all of it is worth fighting for. These words show that the lover and the beloved would withstand all obstacles just to be with and to grow with each other.
As a whole, these three words bring everything together and make sense of everything, giving meaning to all the fragments of a relationship and bringing all of them together into that very single moment. It contains all the things that could be expressed about the relationship, all that could be said of the self, the other, and the connection that exists between. It brings together all the possible ways of showing love, wrapping it all up and presenting it to the other as gift, inasmuch as he presents himself as a gift to the beloved, the way the beloved presents herself as a gift to the lover.
These three words show that there is indeed more than all the possible expressions of love left unsaid. They signify the willingness to commit to be together, to share their whole selves to each other. To actually exist as one.
Saying What Is Unsaid
It doesn't mean that when it is unspoken, it is not love already. In such relationships, intimacy is still expressed and not taken aback, albeit silent. There is still a degree of mutual recognition, treating each other as significant and special. Whatever the lovers have done and gone through can still point to love.
But it is a love that lacks maturity and fullness. It is still in a stage where it still cannot be fully and freely expressed. This unspoken kind of love is still fragmented, floating in those separate moments, with nothing holding them together. It is a love that still depends on time and space, not being sealed and made significant at all times. And it cannot endure because there is still something within that is being held back. There is a part of the lover and/or the beloved that is not yet willing to be given to the other. There are still things that need to be fixed, issues to be discussed, struggles that have to be overcome. In short, love has to be worked out in order for it to be said.
But then, when time comes that the lover and the beloved will be comfortable enough, courageous enough, to say those three words, then the act of saying it becomes more significant, more striking, and definitely more binding than any set of words or expressions that could signify intimacy and commitment.
A reflection based on the twelfth episode of the second season of "How I Met Your Mother" and Ludwig Wittgenstein's discussion of the nature of words in the Philosophical Investigations.
