“Actions vs. Words In Matters of the Heart”

In the most famous love story of all time, the heartbreakingly beautiful masterpiece Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses his brilliant mastery of language to convey the heated passion the young lovers have for each other. We all know Shakespeare is a genius, but humor this English major as she reiterates the extent of his linguistic and dramatic powers. Not only did Shakespeare come up with incredibly complex and captivating plots, he also had the characters speak some of the most beautiful sentences in all of the English language. But even more than that, Shakespeare had a sense of humor. He got irony. He understood that words aren’t real. They’re artifice. They’re symbols we create. They stand for something, but words don’t actually exist in and of themselves.

In Act 2, Scene 1 of the tragic love story, Romeo ventures towards his crush’s balcony at night. He risks the Capulets, who aren’t exactly his biggest fans, seeing him in hopes of catching a glimpse of Juliet. Romeo overhears his love lamenting the fact that he is a Montague, and off limits to her. In response, Shakespeare has Romeo speak gorgeous language as he spills his heart to Juliet, promising his undying devotion to her:

“Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow,

That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops — “

Juliet interrupts him.

“O swear not by the moon, th’inconstant moon

That monthly changes in her circled orb,

Lest that they love prove likewise variable.”

Romeo asks her what he should swear by instead, and she replies he shouldn’t make any promises at all,

“Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,

Which is the god of my idolatry,

And I’ll believe thee.”

It’s completely natural to tell people nice things when we like them. Romeo tried to swear by the moon, a typical thing for any proper young Italian/Elizabethan bro to do at the time, judging by the sonnets that were all the rage back then. Swearing by the moon is what you did, brah.

But Juliet, even though she’s only fourteen, sees through this. Ain’t nobody got time for swearing by the moon. She asks Romeo to swear by nothing. Unless he dares to swear by himself (which he doesn’t do, by the way). Juliet changes the subject saying,

“I have no joy of this contract tonight.

It is too rash, too unadvised too sudden” she says.

We see Juliet reconsider, even if only for a moment, falling head over heels for this guy she’s just met, barely knows, and is her family’s sworn enemy. She realizes that Romeo’s words, while beautiful, are just that. Words. They don’t guarantee his devotion. They don’t ensure he’ll stick around.

So what do we make of this? We’ve all grown up reading Romeo and Juliet and I’ll admit, as a recovering hopeless romantic, it’s appealing to view it as the Textbook of True Love. Love’s Holy Bible, etc. But as I’ve grown a little older and (mostly) wiser, I’ve realized yes, the words that led Romeo and Juliet into such a deep, passionate love are beautiful. But in the end, it’s not the words we remember, it’s the sacrifices they made for each other that defined a passion and devotion that outlasted death, survived centuries, and inspired some pretty sweet movie adaptations (the Baz Luhrmann version featuring Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes is my fave, obviously).

Romeo didn’t just swear by the moon to love Juliet. He was willing to die for her. He did something for her. That’s true love.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m an English major. I’m also a writer and a journalist. I care about words. I can read a sentence I love from a book over and over again. I get so much pleasure out of reading beautiful stories slowly. I revel in the quiet precision of a perfectly executed sentence. Madame Bovary stunned me. It’s that good. “Human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars,” Gustave Flaubert wrote in his classic novel, arguably the first work of modernist literature. Madame Bovary went on to influence James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway to write “true” sentences. In his groundbreaking novel, Flaubert wrote of a desire that can’t be quenched. A yearning that can’t be fulfilled. His bourgeoisie protagonist is in love with the idea of love. No manifestation of love can compete with her dreams and be enough. Eventually, devastated by the disappointment of her dreams and the sense that she’s living an empty and meaningless life, Madame Bovary poisons herself with arsenic. The romantic novels she devours, the love letters she pours her soul into, can never get across what she feels inside.

Flaubert understood the futility of language. Words can’t do feelings justice. Unless you’re Shakespeare, it’s hard to use language to convey emotions effectively. It pains me as a writer to say this, but should we even try?

Instead, if we love someone, perhaps we should show it in our actions. It’s a cliché and one I’m sure we’re all sick of hearing (including myself), but the phrase “actions speak louder than words” carries some real weight. Swearing by the moon that changes every few weeks and sometimes go dark is different from taking your significant other to see the view of the moon from the rooftop of your apartment complex in the city. Writing a flowery text message or promising to be with someone forever is different from choosing to spend time with that person over someone else and being a reliable and consistent force in that person’s life.

I think as intelligent, rational people we want to see the best in others. Our prefrontal cortexes have developed so we can rationalize away what we fear might be bad behavior. Our gut instinct comes from the hippocampus, the oldest part of the human brain, where the fight or flight reflex originated. We’ve evolved over tens of thousands of years to detect when something doesn’t feel right. A lot of that instinct is based on the actions we detect in others. Humans acted out things before we spoke. Ancient cavemen brought meat to their significant others to show their devotion. Ancient cavemen did not swear by the meat. Or maybe they did. Who knows. That would be interesting. But the point is, actions are not just louder than words. They’re older. So why don’t we trust our gut more? Why are we so quick to believe the words, even when we know the actions aren’t there to back them up? Let’s face it. We rationalize behavior we know is shady all the time because we believe what we want to believe. Thanks prefrontal cortex. Let’s imagine a hypothetical conversation between these two competing forces in our brains:

Hippocampus: He only hangs out with me one day a week.

Prefrontal Cortex: But that’s because he’s busy!

Hippocampus: I always end up going to see him at his place and he never sees me where I live.

Prefrontal Cortex: But that’s because he has a stressful job!

Hippocampus: He makes time for his friends, but he doesn’t make time for me.

Prefrontal Cortex: But that’s because he’s known them longer!

Imagine what our lives would be like if we didn’t do this kind of rationalization. If we didn’t always say, “Yes, but.” Yes, we’d be miserable occasionally because we’d realize the guy or girl we like just isn’t into us much sooner than we’d like. We’d also save ourselves a lot of wasted time, unnecessary bullshit, and prolonged heartache.

It’s OK to fall head over heels in love. It’s actually a really awesome thing. I wish it on anyone. Sure, we’re the generation that’s more likely to be Starbucks lovers than Star-crossed lovers, but at least we can take steps to weed out the real Romeos whose actions prove their love, from the fakers who swear by the moon any day of the week, but run away as soon as they see yours. Trust your gut.

I realize the irony of explaining why you should care about actions…through a piece of writing made up of words. An essay is not an action. It’s made up of words. It’s not written in stone. Words are never going to be as true as the actions you experience in your own life. But hey, we’re human. We’ve got prefrontal cortexes. We can’t help but try.