Terrific. You/he did it again. I wouldn't have thought of more than 10% of that, even on a good day. There are some connections with some of the content in '

Terrific. You/he did it again. I wouldn't have thought of more than 10% of that, even on a good day. There are some connections with some of the content in 'The Art of Loving', especially his -- rough quote: "The fundamental problem in life is getting security in face of the anxiety from the realization that we are vulnerable to the hostile forces of nature and society. Human intelligence enables this realization. For responding to this anxiety, only four approaches have been tried, (1) love of god, (2) love of spouse, (3) membership in groups (get praise, acceptance, approval, feeling of belonging, coalition, support), and (4) 'orgiastic' behavior (sex and drugs) to suppress the feelings of anxiety." So, the "idolatry" can be seen as another response to the anxiety, that is, a false approach to (1)-(3). Fromm had another one, that can regard as a 'secret scorecard'! He explained that in a good case of love, the couple gives to each other knowledge, caring, respect, and responsiveness. So, in "knowledge" they keep each other informed on their thoughts, feelings, concerns, desires, etc. In "caring", they actually, actively care about each other. In "respect" they respect the other person, e.g., don't regard them with contempt or to be manipulated or exploited. For "responsiveness", they 'respond' to each other, e.g., don't do what was long in the Sunday newspaper cartoons of the wife talking to the husband over the breakfast table and the husband behind a newspaper repeating "Yes, Dear. Of course, Dear. That's right, Dear. That's nice, Dear. Yes, Dear.". Then take these four 'attributes' and evaluate them for couples you know. If the couple gets a bad grade on all four, try to short the stock of their marriage, if it is possible to do that! Or be very cautious about marrying one of their children! That little scorecard can give some surprising results: Can discover that some couples are going along for decades with what externally to the community looks like a good marriage but according to the scorecard really would like to knife each other in the back! Or, people can put on some really big acts. There's more, from Fromm, and still more if combine Fromm with some other good sources (of which I know only a few). Here's an exercise: Watch 'Roman Holiday'. There the reporter Bradley (Gregory Peck) and Princess Anna (Audrey Hepburn) were from the beginning basically lying to each other about whom they were but slowly mutually but silently worked past the lies. Then evaluate the scorecard: They did great. On each of the four, they started off okay and then grew to a grade of A or A+. Then they were in love. Otherwise they showed it by only quite subtle means, but it was convincing and enough. The writer (Trumbo), director (Wyler), and the actors did fantastic jobs. Fromm's scorecard wins again! People really in love will likely be doing well on Fromm's scorecard whether they have heard of the four items or not. If they are not in love, are pretending to the public to be in love, and have not heard of the four items, then there is a really good chance that their act is not working and they are showing that they are not in love by getting bad grades on the scorecard. I doubt that Trumbo or Wyler had read Fromm, but they knew enough about love to give a really good presentation of it including on Fromm's scorecard. Note: I call Fromm's four attributes a 'scorecard'; I doubt that Fromm ever did! That Fromm's little four item scorecard can look like X-ray vision through the public 'presentation' of couples trying to pretend in public to have a good marriage is to me amazing and astoundingly valuable. Some of the best information about anything I ever got. One more exercise: The first item on Fromm's scorecard is giving knowledge. Well, that is a form of 'intimacy'. If you are in a romantic relationship without intimacy, then you are in deep trouble! On the other hand, if meet a girl and soon she is telling you lots of things from between her ears, then that's intimacy and inviting a romantic relationship. I've been in 'romantic' relationships where the girl was much more open about what was between her legs than between her ears. Or in 'Roman Holiday', they started between their ears and slowly worked down to, say, a nice hug and a kiss. In real life, it can be much more common to start below the waist and maybe move up, maybe never get above the shoulders, and only rarely get between the ears. Or, in middle school it can appear that a lot of the mothers told their daughters to stay away from boys, not to talk to them: "Don't tell them anything. If they ask 'why', just say 'because'. Say it over and over until they feel insulted and give up." So, such mothers know that this way they can throttle a path toward intimacy for their middle school daughters. Fromm's amazing.