quick question, if one were to translate "i love being ____" would that be "mi amas esti ____"? (i.e.: "Mi amas esti esperantisto") or would another form of esti be more precise? or would there be a better way of phrasing the whole thing? "Mi amas esti ___" seems like common sense to me, with the complimentary infinitive rule, but at the same time, for some reason, it doesn't seem to convey the same connotation of constance as "being" in it's infinitive form. I could be wrong, though. I think I'm just over-complicating it, because of the semantics of English (as usual).

Mi amas esti esperantisto is 100% correct.

Both the English infinitive (be) and the English gerund (being) correspond to Esperanto infinitives. However the English present participle (being, which unfortunately looks the same as the gerund) generally corresponds to the Esperanto present participle (estant/).

The thing is that the gerund once was the (nominally) inflected form of the infinitive, i.e. gerunds and infinitives are basically the same, just the former is marked for case while the latter is not. Compare Latin: amare, amandi, amando, amare (ad amandum), amando.

So:
Infinitive -> infinitive: I want to see you. = Mi volas vidi vin.
Gerund -> infinitive: I love swimming. = Mi amas naĝi.
Gerund -> infinitive: Swimming is good. = Naĝi estas bone.
Participle -> participle: I saw a swimming elephant. = Mi vidis naĝantan elefanton.
Participle -> participle: Swimming in the sea, I crapped. = Naĝante en la maro, mi fekis.

The most complicated thing here is actually the fact that in English gerunds and present participles look the same, and it might be difficult (for native speakers) to identify whether an -ing form is a gerund or a participle.

Ah, i see. thanks (: I figured it was correct. it just seemed weird to me. I always get confused translating out of english, because english is so overly semantic, and there's so many ways to say things that have slightly different connotations, but all mean basically the same thing. it's frustrating lol -_-