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What is Love?
How do you define (or think about) love? I find it to be an intimidating topic to discuss. Similar to wisdom — love is many things. Christian scripture tells us, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered …” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Here are five ways to think about love in modern life inspired by a few of our recent meditations on love.
1. Love is Action
Love shows itself in deeds, according to the theologian St. Ignatius of Loyola. Similarly, St. Thomas Aquinas described love as “willing the good of another.” Love as action includes acts for the common good but also acts for ourselves. When Seneca was asked about his progress toward wisdom, he responded, “I have begun to become a better friend to myself.”
2. Love is a Practice
In the Art of Loving (an upcoming book for Reading & the Good Life), the psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm explained,
“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, …. 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.”
Similarly, the Stoics connect love with wisdom. Epictetus taught his students, “Whoever then understands what is good, can also know how to love; but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which are neither good nor bad from both, can he possess the power of loving? To love, then, is only in the power of the wise.”
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
— Buddha
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