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The Art of Loving

by Erich Fromm

For many years I have been on the quest for a piece of literature that would describe love to me. As a hopeless romantic, and as a lover of love I can finally say that I have found the closest description of love while relating it to important themes that evoke critical thinking. At first, I had a fair anxiety about finding this book to be nothing but a cliché self-help book that has a rather repetitive fashion and does not present new ideas to the question of "What essentially is love, and how can it be practiced?"

Erich Fromm succeeded in opening my mind up to the importance and the indispensability of self-discipline, of facing the harsh reality of things, and the way present socio-economic structures have affected our views on relationships. He proceeds to define the current human experience as an alienation of Man from his true essence; prioritizing pleasure that not only does not fulfill Man but empties him and leaves him shallow. On page 68, he states "Man's happiness today consists of 'having fun'. Having fun lies in the satisfaction of consuming and 'taking in' commodities, sights, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, movies - all are consumed, swallowed. The world is one great object for our appetite, a big apple, a big bottle, a big breast; we are the sucklers, the eternally expectant ones, the hopeful ones - and the eternally disappointed ones." We can sense bits of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in that quote as it can be correlated to how society, especially consumer culture, has allowed us to take in pleasures in life that aren’t that essential to our 'raison d'être' or meaning to life. Everything has become so accessible, it has been taken for granted. Additionally, capitalist society has turned love into a profitable project rather than a fundamental human and universal experience that needn’t be marketed.

The author has also debunked many myths about what a successful marriage can be based on and what it can consist of. "One of the most significant expressions of love, and especially of marriage with this alienated structure, is the idea of the 'team'," he writes. Marriage is an institution that has recently fallen victim to doubt and questioning by society. Is marriage the legitimate manifestation of love? Is it the last reachable goal in people's relationships? Why is it unsuccessful then? Questions with possible answers that Fromm has explored in his 3rd chapter (Love and Its Disintegration in Contemporary Western Society).

Furthermore, the discussion gets stretched to a very interesting and rather crucial point of any conversation or analysis; God's place within the topic of love. In the chapter 'The Theory of Love', Erich Fromm goes into all possible kinds of love, and the part called 'Love of God' is the most intriguing. The author writes about the religious and spiritual aspects of the phenomenon of love. Summoning Taoism, Man's relation to God, and so on. "Thus paradoxical logic leads to the conclusion that the love of God is neither the knowledge of God in thought, nor the thought of one's love of God, but the act of experiencing the oneness with God."

Overall, 'The Art of Loving' has imprinted its ideas and sentences in my brain like tattoos. It gave me incitement to take control over my life and my relationships; to exercise love in its purest form and wish nothing in return, and to practice the art of living as well as the art of loving.