BAZA ZNANJA

Kurs: -- English - Upper-Intermediate

Modul: Possessives

Autor: prof. Gordana Matorkić

Naziv jedinice: Why Love

There is only one passion which satisfies man's need to unite himself with the world, and to acquire at the same time a sense of integrity and individuality, and this is love. Love is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self. It is an experience of sharing, of communion, which permits the full unfolding of one's own inner activity. The experience of love does away with the necessity of illusions. There is no need to inflate the image of the other person, or of myself, since the reality of active sharing and loving permits me to transcend my individual existence, and at the same time to experience myself as the bearer of the active powers which constitute the act of loving. What matters is the particular quality of loving, not the object.

Love is one aspect of what I have called the productive orientation: the active and creative relatedness of man to his fellow man, to himself and to nature. In the realm of thought, this productive orientation is expressed in the proper grasp of the world by reason. In the realm of action, the productive orientation is expressed in productive work, the prototype of which is art and craftsmanship. In the realm of feeling, the productive orientation is expressed in love, which is the experience of union with another person, with all man, and with nature, under the condition of retaining one's aspect of integrity and independence. In the experience of love, the paradox happens that two people become one, and remain two at the same time. Love in this sense is never restricted to one person. If I can love only one person, and nobody else, if my love for one person makes me more alienated and distant from my fellow man, I may be attached to this person in any number of ways, yet I do not love. If I can say "I love you", I say "I love in you all of humanity, all that is alive; I love in you also myself." Self-love, in this sense, is the opposite of selfishness.  The latter is actually a greedy concern with oneself which springs from and compensates for the lack of genuine love for oneself. Love paradoxically, makes me more independent because it makes me stronger and happier – yet it makes me one with the loved person to the extent that individuality seems to be extinguished for the moment. In loving I experience ‘I am you', you- the loved person, you- the stranger, you- everything alive. In the experience of love lies the only answer to being human, lies sanity.

Erich Fromm, The Sane Society

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