Eric Fromm, in his The Art of Loving, agrees with Pig that we can’t master the art of loving, living, being happy if we worry about impressing other people:
The first step to take is to become aware that love is an art, just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art, say music, painting, carpentry, or the art of medicine or engineering. What are the necessary steps in learning any art? The process of learning an art can be divided conveniently into two parts: one, the mastery of the theory; the other, the mastery of the practice. If I want to learn the art of medicine, I must first know the facts about the human body, and about various diseases. When I have all this theoretical knowledge, I am by no means competent in the art of medicine. I shall become a master in this art only after a great deal of practice, until eventually the results of my theoretical knowledge and the results of my practice are blended into one — my intuition, the essence of the mastery of any art. But, aside from learning the theory and practice, there is a third factor necessary to becoming a master in any art — the mastery of the art must be a matter of ultimate concern; there must be nothing else in the world more important than the art. This holds true for music, for medicine, for carpentry — and for love. And, maybe, here lies the answer to the question of why people in our culture try so rarely to learn this art, in spite of their obvious failures: in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power — almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving.
Pig would point out his way is a heck of a lot easier!
it’s good Monk. 🙂
I’m with mouse and pig.
Hurray for happiness, no matter how we achieve it. (Yes, a lot of people will disagree.) 😀
The problem lies in the emphasis on individualism that the enlightenment era brought about. Prior to that and unbridled capitalism of the libertarians, families and communities were more important and there was no need for formal training to learn to love. It was part of natural growth as one grew up. Urban living further exacerbated this isolation and we have now come to this sorry state of affairs. Even Eastern cultures who for centuries did not have the malady now suffer this phenomenon.
Interestingly enough, new studies point out that the resurgence of all forms of religiosity is an answer to handling emotional problems arising out of this sadness.
Yeah, sure. Have ever watched Pather Panchali? I saw that over 50 years ago and still remember it. So much for small Eastern communities being the epitome of love. And do you think honor killings are done in the spirit of love?
Sure religiosity, and xenophobia and nativism, are reactions to feelings of alienation. According to Fromm in Escape from Freedom so were National Socialism and Communism. That book made a huge impression on me in high school — I mostly remember that one fellow was an ardent Nazi and after the war needed something else to believe in so he became an ardent Communist. Absolute contrasts in ideology but both authoritarian enough to satisfy his needs.
I agree that urban living often results in feelings of isolation and loneliness, but that has little to do with individualism. Read about early Christianity and other religions in ancient Rome — they gave people a sense of community. When emperor Julian (the Apostate according to the Catholic Church) tried to replace Christianity with paganism as the state religion, he included the Christian idea of philanthropy because it was so powerful. “These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes.”
Also, ancient Athens, over a thousand years before the Enlightenment, had a law saying people had to care for their aging parents. Why did they think that law was necessary if loving was always a natural development as one grew up?
Now I just need to convince my doctor that, at my age, “should” no longer belongs in my vocabulary. Happy is way more important.
Amen to that!
most of the time “I’m happily in the love with me”>..
Good for you!
Pather Panchali was a story written in 1929 when the Brits were destroying India. Please read https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/23/inglorious-empire-what-british-did-to-india-shashi-tharoor-review
The situation depicted abject poverty thrust on a small village due to callous colonial rule which forced the head of the family to try and come out of the mire by going to the city. Out of love for his family if I may add. The family in turn show a great deal of love including to a selfish elder who does not deserve such love.
Despite the grinding poverty, the family without the father tries to stay together and have moments of joy despite the abject lives they live. If one does not look after the elder another family does, and one from the previous family shares food with the disappointed and cantankerous elder. All the human emotions, particularly love that they don’t have to learn exist despite very adverse conditions.
Leave India aside if you will and go over to Dostoevsky’s The Mysterious Visitor, there is a monologue that describes how soul destroying individualism of the enlightenment is/was.
Or, if you prefer, the latest to lament the fading away of liberalism is an excellent book by Edward Luce. A review can be read here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/books/review-retreat-of-western-liberalism-edward-luce.html
The point is, irrespective of any ism, humans can be human and don’t have to learn to love if only they would just let life lead them naturally to being human without getting brainwashed into isms.
Sure, Pather Panchali showed love of family, but not of community. I’m afraid I think you’re naive if you think human nature is just about love. In general people are hierarchical and status conscious. Presumably you don’t blame the Brits for the caste system? And do you believe moderns don’t value family ties? If anything wealthy Americans are criticized for being helicopter parents, and I recently read that Chinese parents are living in tents next to universities to help their only children navigate their first year of college life. Human nature in action.
About the Luce book — I read the review and agree, Trump is just a symptom. And as I’ve written before, one of the books I read in high school that had the greatest effect on me was Plato’s The Republic. I was only 15 when I plowed my way through it, and most of it was over my head, but I remember that Plato thought democracy was a bad form of government, it was unstable because of mob rule and leads to tyranny. At the time, we were being taught how great democracy was (we were a republic, of course, not a democracy because the founding fathers worried about mob rule too, but that wasn’t mentioned so much.) Anyway I didn’t know nearly enough to decide and knew just listening to arguments wasn’t going to help. That’s why I got interested in history and why right now I’m watching the Great Courses lectures on ancient Greece to see how the various governments played out there. At the moment we’re at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War when Athens was a radical democracy. Before this I watched another fellow about that war, he thought it wasn’t the form of government that caused Athens to lose, but this teacher is going to say the opposite, I think. Anyway, it’s all very interesting and relevant to what’s going on in the world right now. It helps a lot to keep things in perspective.
If I had to bet I would put my money on China doing well and America declining, but the one thing I’ve learned about history is there have been many times that what seemed to be a good bet at the time turned out completely wrong.