The Art of Loving by Dr. Fromm  (English-Korean Bilingual edition)

As says Dr. Fromm “ Love is the only satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”

Yet most of us are unable to develop our capacities for love on the only level that really counts — a love that is compounded of maturity, self-knowledge and courage. Learning to love, like other arts, demands practice and concentration. Even more than any other art it demands genuine insight and understanding. In this startling book, Dr. Fromm discusses love in all its aspects, not only romantic love, so surrounded by false conceptions, but also love of parents for children, brotherly love, erotic love, self-love and love of God.

He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees…. The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love … Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes.

 

-PARACELSUS

IS LOVE an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Or is love a pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one “falls into” if one is lucky? This little book is based on the former premise, while undoubtedly the majority of people today believe in the latter.

Not that people think that love is not important. They are starved for it; they watch endless numbers of films about happy and unhappy love stories, they listen to hundreds of trashy songs about love — yet hardly anyone thinks that there is anything that needs to be learned about love.

Love is an activity; if I love, I am in a constant state of active concern with the loved person, but not only with him or her. For I shall become incapable of relating myself actively to the loved person if I am lazy, if I am not in a constant state of awareness, alertness, activity. Sleep is the only proper situation for inactivity; the state of awakeness is one in which laziness should have no place.

The paradoxial situation with a vast number of people today is that they are half asleep when awake, and half awake when asleep, or when they want to sleep. To be fully awake is the condition for not being bored, or being boring — and indeed, not to be bored or boring is one of the main conditions for loving. To be active in thought, feeling, with one’s eyes and ears, throughout the day, to avoid inner laziness, be it in the form of being receptive, hoarding, or plain wasting one’s time, is an indispensable condition for the practice of the art of loving.

It is an illusion to believe that one can separate life in such a way that one is productive in the sphere of love and unproductive in all other spheres. Productiveness does not permit of such a division of labor. The capacity to love demands a state of intensity, awakeness, enhanced vitality, which can only be the result of a productive and active orientation in many other spheres of life.

If one is not productive in other spheres, one is not productive in love either. If to love means to have a loving attitude toward everybody, if love is a character trait, it must necessarily exist in one’s relationship not only with one’s family and friends, but toward those with whom one is in contact through one’s work, business, profession.

Language: English – Korean
Format: ebook PDF
Pages: 318
Size: 9.5 mb

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