Escaping (y)our Prison
This week I feel called to share the opening of the second chapter of Erich Fromm’s book ‘The Art of Loving’. Written in 1957 way before the rise of technology as we know it today it is a lightbulb book not just for once own love life, but an insightful guide into the powerful adhesive of the world we all live in.
“What is essential in the existence of men is the fact he has emerged from the animal kingdom, from instinctive adaptation, that he has transcended nature - although he never leaves it; he is part of it - and yet once torn away from nature, he cannot return to it; once thrown out of paradise (…)
Man can only go forward by developing his reason, by finding a new harmony, a human one, (..)
There is certainty only about the past - and about the future only as far as that is death.
Man is gifted with reason; he is life being aware of itself; he has awareness of himself, of his fellow man, of his past, and of the possibilities of his future. This awareness of himself as a separate entity, the awareness of his short life span, of the fact that without his will he is born and against his will, he dies, that he will die before those whom he loves, or they before him, the awareness of his aloneness and separateness, of his helplessness before the forces of nature and of society, all this makes his separate, disunited existence an unbearable prison. He would become insane could he not liberate himself from this prison and reach out, unite himself in some form or other with men, with the world outside. (..)
The awareness of human separation without reunion by love - is the source of shame. It is at the same time the source of guilt and anxiety. The deepest need of man, then, is the need to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness.”
Inspiration:
’The Art of Loving’ - Erich Fromm