Opinion: Finding Meaning

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By Skip Hellewell

This Thing Called Love

By Skip Hellewell

The Super Bowl will celebrate excellence in the hard, win-lose world of football. One team will celebrate, while the other will go home as losers. Valentine’s Day, barely two days later, is the exact opposite. It’s not a spectator sport. Everyone can play. You get to make your own rules, and all can be winners. There we have the essence of life: two paths, and you get to choose which one to take.

In 1956, psychologist-philosopher Erich Fromm wrote a classic, “The Art of Loving.” In this long-time best-seller, Fromm argued that we had lost our way, with people treating love as a transaction, a quid pro quo of something-for-something, with the human inclination to get more while giving less. The title hinted that love wasn’t something you ‘fell’ into but an ‘art,’ a way of relating to others that required self-knowledge plus the hard work of becoming a better person. And it wasn’t just about romantic love, but about how to treat everyone we encounter.

If you study the “Sermon on the Mount,” you find hints on how to walk a higher path. Humility, generosity, forgiveness, and kindness to others are essential steps. The challenge is to practice this in a world based on win-lose competitiveness, where everyone is fighting for a bigger slice of the pie, assuming the pie is a fixed sum. But what if the pie was only limited by our ability to love one another?

We just celebrated our wedding anniversary, an event that annually challenges my ability to express love. I tend to get focused on projects, but the Beautiful Wife is smart and drops a few hints as the big day nears, lest I forget. I’m also a cheap guy, not thinking of diamonds and such. This year I was saved by our three children who live in the area, inviting each to dinner at places meaningful to us. The first meal was with our son and wife at Five Crowns in Corona del Mar, a restaurant we had once enjoyed early in our marriage and for which I had an old gift certificate. The next morning, we enjoyed brunch at The Ranch in Aliso Canyon with one daughter and husband, revisiting the site of their wedding reception. We finished at the Crab Cooker in Newport with another daughter and husband, a favorite place over the years. The BW loved visiting more intimately with her children (she considers the in-laws her children), and the kids started picking up the tab. Maybe my best year.

A while back, I wrote about a grumpy guy in the community, living amidst piles of stuff. A medical emergency took him to the hospital for a few weeks, and caring neighbors were inspired to make his home livable. Their example caused others to join in the work, carrying away the junk, and fixing what was broken. When the home was done, they started on the yard. The big worry was whether this help would make a difference, whether a heart could be changed. Thanksgiving passed, then Christmas. Our grumpy hoarder has two daughters who live nearby but were estranged—love, it seemed, had died. Last week they came to visit with grandchildren. The neighbors watched and listened, wondering. They heard laughter where there had been none; they saw grandchildren happily playing, the visit lasting six hours. It seems a miracle of love rediscovered.

First, there’s the Super Bowl, then Valentine’s Day. Win-lose and win-win. The best thing is we get to choose and can be as good as we want. There’s meaning in that.

Skip fell in love with Laguna on a ‘50s surfing trip. He’s a student of Laguna history and the author of “Loving Laguna: A Local’s Guide to Laguna Beach.” Email: [email protected].

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