Date sent:        Mon, 22 Apr 1996 10:52:26 -0700


                        A Loving Example
     Have you ever been in love?  According to Erich Fromm, if you can answer this question
with a "Yes" or a "No," then you do not know the true meaning of love.  In The Art of
Loving, Fromm contrasts the popular misconception of love as a sensation to the way he sees
love, as an art.  As a form of art, love is less of a feeling and more of a way of life.  He
gives strict guidelines for achieving this "art form," guidelines that I believe all but the
most virtuous are incapable of reaching.  However, I have known one person, my friend
Jasmine, who can be thought of as a loving person according to Fromm's guidelines.
     Fromm believes that people in contemporary society focus on the intensity of the
     feelings
of falling in love and maintain irrational beliefs and expectations of these feelings.  With
the recent concept of romantic love manifesting itself so deeply in today's society, modern
people tend to seek the right object to love rather than to develop the capacity to love. 
The reason Jasmine is not yet ready for marriage is not because she has not found the
"right" person, but because it is not yet the right time in her life.  As opposed to most
people nowadays, she is not looking or waiting for the right one.  She told me about one man
with whom there was a strong mutual attraction, but rather than getting carried away by her
emotions, she moved on because she knew that she could be happy in love with him, or perhaps
even someone else, later down the line when the time was right.
     Another tendency of people in our society is to get caught up in the confusion one
     feels
while experiencing the excitement of falling in love.  They then take these intense feelings
as validation for their love as "the real thing", yet do not doubt the presence of ever
experiencing true love once the emotional intensity inevitably fades away.  By maintaining a
strong sense of rationality, Jasmine realizes how she can be passionate without being a
slave to her passions. The last time she was infatuated with someone, she explained to me
what she was emotionally going through.  She explained to me the biological mechanisms
responsible for her feelings of euphoria.  She also told me how she knew that these feelings
would eventually go away.  Since she was not ready to settle down, she did not get carried
away with these feelings.  She pursued the relationship to some degree, but broke it off
once it started getting too serious since she was not ready for a deep relationship.
     Fromm believes that love, just as any art, must be practiced and perfected.  I consider
     my
friend Jasmine to be a paradigm of concentration, discipline, and patience, the essential
qualities that Fromm believes one must incorporate into one's life to successfully master
love.  These qualities make Jasmine a loving person according to Fromm's definition.
     The main characteristic of a loving person, concentration, is one that Jasmine
encompasses in all waking moments of her life.  A loving person must maintain a state of
concentration at all times and Jasmine is a model of concentration.  By simply viewing her
correct posture and alert eyes, one can sense the degree of concentration she uses.  When
speaking to anyone, she maintains eyes contact and exhibits illustrative facial and body
gestures. Jasmine follows the conversation with thoughtful interjections without
interrupting; she always lets the speaker finish his/ her train of thought before she adds
her own considerations.  By always maintaining a high level of concentration, Jasmine is
able to remain sensitive to her own feelings and the feelings of others; this makes her
equipped to confront, headfirst, any possible problems in a relationship.
     The second essential quality, a strong sense of discipline, is another feature of
     Jasmine's
life that stands out.  She prioritizes her goals and makes lists so that she can properly
organize her time.  She maintains a strict schedule of exercise and work; she then utilizes
her spare time to accomplish the tasks on her list.  Rather than "vegetate" or be a "couch
potato," she reads stimulating books.  She also keeps her room clean by hanging up her
clothes after she wears them and by placing objects in their proper location.  When applied
to a situation of loving, she would have the correct skills and habits to do the little
things that make a relationship work.
     A loving person must also resist the precedence of modern society's manifestations of
quickness and efficiency and bring back the virtues of patience.  When Jasmine tutored me in
math, Jasmine maintained her cool and repeatedly explained the concepts until I finally
understood. Although she had already explained the concepts several times and found them
quite easy, she realized how difficult the problems were for me and took the time to explain
them in several different ways.  In a role reversal, Jasmine took a few drum lessons from
me.  Although she is not very coordinated, fast-learning, or musically inclined, she ended
up playing the drums better than anyone who I had previously taught.  By simply practicing
and establishing strong drumming fundamental techniques, she was able to master simple
rhythm patterns and soon added progressively fancier rhythms.
     According to Fromm, modern people mistake the sensations of infatuation with the
concept of love.  While viewing the ideal of love as a sensation, they expect the fervor of
the feelings to last and search for the right object to love.  Fromm's definition of a
loving person would disqualify msot people in today's society, who are caught up in the
quest for love as a sensation.  However, Jasmine would qualify as a model of one who has
developed the capacity to develop true love: love as an art.  By embracing the concepts of
concentration, discipline, and patience, Jasmine has mastered both the theory and the
practice of love as an art and a way of life as opposed to love as a fleeting passion.