THE ART OF LOVING 戀愛藝術

Autumn is the season of love. With gentle breeze and grey sky, you can’t help to indulge in melancholy sentiments and memories – memories of ex-lovers, or the demise of love. Maybe it’s the time for learning from those experiences. “The Art of Loving”, written by Erich Fromm, a renowned psychologist, claims true love involves four basic elements: care, responsibility, respect and knowledge. Sounds old-fashioned? Fromm explains the idea by introducing an interesting concept: self-love. Different from narcissism and arrogance, self-love means caring about, taking responsibility for, respecting, and knowing yourself. This is perhaps more important than loving others as it is your self, but not others, to company you in your rest life.

古人有云：「何處合成愁？離人心上秋。」初秋的微風總泛着一絲戀愛氣息，讓人不禁憶起往事：擦身而過的戀人、逝去無聲的愛情。與其感傷地回想前塵，倒不如學習如何去愛。心理學大師佛洛姆的名著《愛的藝術》正是最適合這季節的讀物。書中提及，真正的愛由四個基本元素構成：關心、責任、尊重和瞭解。聽起來陳套不堪？佛洛姆提出例子作解釋：愛自己。愛自己就是緊張、尊重、瞭解自己的心扉，並對自己負責，這跟自戀、自大是兩碼子的事。也許懂得愛自己比起愛別人更重要，畢竟肯定跟隨你整輩子的，不是別人，而是你自己啊。