Bengaluru — 15 September, Tuesday
Last night, I listened to Erich Fromm’s Four Elements of Love from The Art of Loving. As usual, I wrote down every word so I could share it with you. I want us to have a healthy relationship where we constantly learn to understand what our partner needs, rather than assuming what they need. And if there is anything in these four elements that I am not practising well, please talk to me about it. I will try to improve myself and learn to love you in the way you want and need to be loved.
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Here are my notes:
Beyond giving love, there are four elements. Without all four, what you have is not love. It may feel like love. It may be called love, but it is something else.
The four are care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
Love is the active concern for the life and growth of what you love. If you say you love someone but show no concern for their growth, you do not love them. You possess them.
Responsibility — Not duty imposed from outside, but the willingness and ability to respond to another person and to their needs.
Respect — Not admiration. It is the ability to see a person as they truly are, and to want them to grow in their own way and for their own sake.
Knowledge — Not merely knowing the surface details: “I know your coffee order.” It is a deeper knowledge that penetrates — seeing past the anger to the fear, past the silence to the loneliness inside it.
Without this knowledge, care is blind, responsibility is presumption, and respect is performance.
Remove any one of these four, and what remains is not love. It is dependency, possession, or merely sentiment.
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After listening to this, I went back and read the notes I wrote about you in 2018. I smiled. So many flashes of memories rushed through my mind, together with everything I felt about you then — and perhaps still feel now.
Wanna know what I wrote?
“Tak siapa menduga tahun lepas Tuhan hadiahkan seorang perempuan yang baik pekerti, lemah lembut dan senang didampingi buat saya. Bersama dia, dunia menjadi sangat indah. Pada pandangan saya, Hara adalah seorang perempuan yang cerdas fikiran, cerdik mengatur hidup dan teliti dalam membuat keputusan. Jalan hidupnya tidaklah begitu mudah namun berjaya diharungi dengan tabah. Tuhan selalu anugerahkan sifat tabah pada perempuan. Mereka adalah insan yang hebat dalam menempuh dugaan hidup. — Jan, 2018
I have always called you by your name because you are the only Nurhara in my life.
I love spelling your name. I love pronouncing it carefully, as though it were a sacred word.
Thank you for coming into my life and for sharing so many moments with me.
Love and only love,
Abang
