Je T’aime, Ti Amo, Te Amo, I Love You. They are expressions of love in European cultures and the New World cultures as well.
I heard a radio interview with an Asian author some weeks ago; if memory serves, she was of Vietnamese heritage. An idea that emerged in that interview was that verbal expressions of love were perhaps less common in Asian cultures where love was more commonly expressed through actions. That is not to say that physical demonstrations of love do not also occur in western cultures. They do. The author was emphasizing that parents and lovers in her culture were more likely to express their deep affections with a backrub, preparing a favorite meal, or some other investment of time and energy than by a verbal uttering.
When you stop to think about it, an utterance requires a minimal investment or sacrifice. Preparing a meal, bringing coffee to a partner in bed, making a bedtime dessert, applying essential oils to one’s beloved’s skin and other such physical demonstrations of love require a much larger investment of time and energy. I must admit that while I value both forms of expressions highly, for me, the physical expressions have a greater healing effect on the body and mind.
This brings me to the idea of teaching. Teaching is an activity that requires a very large investment of time and energy and that most often produces little of value for the teacher. The value almost always accrues to the student. From the perspective of individuals, teaching has negative survival value unless one is the student. From the perspective of a species, teaching can have huge survival value. We see this among virtually all mammals where the presence of parents and community often shows value above and beyond providing infant nutrition and safety from predators and other threats.
I have benefitted from the time and energy of hundreds of teachers. None of them ever told me that they loved me. They didn’t need to; they showed me almost every day. Teaching is an expression of love, I think. And we should value it as such.