Now in this letter she was trying again, in the hope that perhaps this time I would get into it. As far as I recall, I explained that I agreed in essence with the reply that our sannyasi godbrother had given earlier, that one should serve the persons whom we love, that in The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm has shown with logic and reason that many people have fundamental misconceptions of the meaning of love. They think love is a feeling when love is an art, like carpentry or other such means of self-expression that require us to work at it and to discipline ourselves in certain ways. This work takes expression in the form of service to the object of love. We serve those we love and we love those we serve.
Love is service, but it is also an art, in the sense that one has to work at it.
But from childhood on, beginning with the fairytales we hear, we are conditioned to understand love as something that sweeps us off our feet. We are taught that love is a feeling, on in which the whole earth moves. The prince carries off the princess and they live happily ever after, because he captured her heart, usually because he is wealthy, good-looking and charming, all of which evokes feeling. So early on the archetype is set up in which little boys think their aim in life is to find this princess and sweep her off her feet and little girls are waiting for this sensation of being swept off their feet. And if they find a relationship in which the earth does not move, is not all spontaneous and effortless and they do not in fact live happily ever after, then this must be the wrong prince or princess, because it takes too much work.