From Erich Fromm’s book “The Art of Loving”:
“Love is a feeling which a person can hardly afford, regardless of their degree of maturity. Our intention is to convince the reader that all their attempts to love are doomed to failure if they do not actively strive to develop their total personality in order to orient it toward creativity; that they cannot enjoy happiness in individual love without loving their neighbor, without real humility, courage, faith, and discipline.
Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of possessing the capacity to love. To them, the problem is how to be loved, how to be lovable. A second opinion against the need to master the art of love is that it depends primarily on an object, rather than a faculty of the personality. People think that to love is simple, but that the difficulty lies in finding the right object to love — or to be loved by.
A third error, motivating the claim that there is nothing to be learned about love, lies in the confusion between the initial ‘falling’ in love and the permanent state of loving, or what we might call ‘standing’ in love. The concept that nothing is easier than to love continues to prevail despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The first step in this direction is to realize that love, just like life, is an art. If we want to understand how to love, we must proceed in the same way as when learning any other skill, such as music, painting, carpentry, or the mastery of medicine and engineering.
What are the main stages in learning a skill? This process can be divided into two parts: first, the mastery of theory; second, the mastery of practice.” — Erich Fromm
If this is the answer from the games of synchronicity for you, perhaps it is time to begin studying the art of love. To start, begin with the study of theory, because diligent practice based on false beliefs about what love is cannot lead to the desired results.*
*Note: This text is translated from the Bulgarian edition of the book.produce the desired results.
