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# 2017-02-14 - The Art Of Loving by Erich Fromm
(IMG) Rainbow hug
Excerpts for Validation Day
The most fundamental kind of love, which underlies all types of love,
is brotherly/sisterly love. By this i mean the sense of
responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of any other human being,
the wish to further their life. This is the kind of love the Bible
speaks of when it says: love thy neighbor as thyself.
Brotherly/Sisterly love is love for all human beings; it is
characterized by its very lack of exclusiveness. If i have developed
the capacity for love, then i cannot help loving my brothers/sisters.
In brotherly/sisterly love there is the experience of union with all
humanity, of human solidarity, of human at-onement.
Brotherly/sisterly love is based on the experience that we are all
one. The differences in talents, intelligence, knowledge are
negligible in comparison with the identity of the human core common
to all humanity. In order to experience this identity it is
necessary to penetrate from the periphery to the core. If i perceive
in another person mainly the surface, i perceive mainly the
differences, that which separates us. If i penetrate to the core, i
perceive our identity, the fact of our brotherhood/sisterhood. ...
Brotherly/sisterly love is love between equals: but indeed, even as
equals we are not always "equal"; inasmuch as we are human, we are
all in need of help. Today i, tomorrow you. But this need of help
does not mean that the one is helpless, the other powerful.
Helplessness is a transitory condition; the ability to stand and walk
on one's own feet is the permanent and common one.
Concentration is by far more difficult to practice in our culture, in
which everything seems to act against the ability to concentrate. ...
Indeed, to be able to concentrate means to be able to be alone with
oneself-and this ability is precisely a condition for the ability to
love. ... Anyone who tries to be alone with theirself will discover
how difficult it is. ... It would be helpful to practice a few very
simple exercises, as, for instance, to sit in a relaxed position
(neither slouching, nor rigid), to close one's eyes, and to try to
see a white screen in front of one's eyes, and to try to remove all
interfering pictures and thoughts, then to try to follow one's
breathing; not to think about it, nor force it, but to follow it-and
in doing so to sense it; furthermore try to have a sense of "I"; I =
myself, as the center of my powers, as the creator of my world. One
should, at least, do such a concentration exercise every morning for
twenty minutes (and if possible longer) and every evening before
going to bed.
Besides such exercises, one must learn to be concentrated in
everything one does, in listening to music, in reading a book, in
talking to a person, in seeing a view. The activity at this very
moment must be the only thing that matters, to which one is fully
given. If one is concentrated, it matters little what one is doing;
the important, as well as the unimportant things assume a new
dimension of reality, because they have one's full attention. To
learn concentration requires avoiding, as far as possible, trivial
conversation, that is, conversation which is not genuine. If two
people talk about the growth of a tree they both know, or about the
taste of bread they have just eaten together, or about a common
experience in their job, such conversation can be relevant, provided
they experience what they are talking about, and do not deal with it
in an abstract way; on the other hand, a conversation can deal with
matters of politics or religion and yet be trivial; this happens when
the two people talk in cliches, when their hearts are not in what
they are saying. ...
To be concentrated in relation to others means primarily being able
to listen. ...
To be concentrated means to live fully in the present, in the here
and now, and not to think of the next thing to be done, while i am
doing something right now. Needless to say that concentration must
be practiced most of all by people who love each other. They must
learn to be close to each other without running away in the many ways
which this is customarily done. ...
One cannot learn to concentrate without becoming sensitive to
oneself. ... One is aware, for instance, of a sense of tiredness or
depression, and instead of giving in to it and supporting it by
depressive thoughts which are always at hand, one asks oneself "what
happened?" Why am i depressed? The same is done by noticing when
one is irritated or angry, or tending to daydreaming, or other escape
activities. In each of these instances the important thing is to be
aware of them, and not to rationalize them in the thousand and one
ways in which this can be done; furthermore, to be open to our own
inner voice, which will tell us-often rather immediately-why we are
anxious, depressed, or irritated. ...
To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself
completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved
person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is
also of little love.
> You didn't know i was watching through the eyes of every person
> you met, nor could you hear my voice in the wind. But in your
> heart i await you, my love, forever. -Drunvalo
tags: book,non-fiction,love,philosophy
# Tags
(DIR) book
(DIR) non-fiction
(DIR) love
(DIR) philosophy