[Book Sip] All Kinds of Love in the World: The Love Method of High Self-Esteem

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly reach the reader's heart, creating a connection with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from the book. - Editor's note

The book features various love stories, including Scarlett and Rhett Butler from "Gone with the Wind," the lesbian couple Adele and Emma from the French film "Blue Is the Warmest Color," singers Seo Taiji and Shin Hae-chul who lived in the same era but experienced completely different loves, and figures like Yuk Young-soo, Lee Hee-ho, and Simone de Beauvoir who showed diverse forms of love ranging from traditional to egalitarian. Through them, the author vividly portrays the multifaceted types of love, from unrequited love, heartbreak, forbidden love, traditional or egalitarian love, to self-love.

During the period when I was filled with longing for one person, my life changed. And when that love ends, I find that a 'great knowledge' about the once unfamiliar subject fills me inside. Instead of the intense emotion of love, I gain concrete and profound knowledge. Therefore, love is an event. It is the greatest event given to me by another living being and simultaneously bestowed upon myself by me. _pp.34~35 〈1. Unrequited Love ? What Strips Away the Magic〉

The moment we fall in love, we dismantle all the daily life related to us and simultaneously throw those pieces into that person. We deconstruct the objects, climate, humans, non-human life forms surrounding me, the history of my past life, and the history of the community, combining them with that person to be reborn, rapidly escaping from within me. The two people involved each exit their own bodies, dismantle everything that constituted themselves, merge with the other's, and recombine, thus creating two completely new personalities. _p.67 〈2. Heartbreak ? What Does Love Give?〉

Love is a proof of existence and the genre where human free will is most dramatically revealed. When forbidden by parents or community, love intensifies and blazes uncontrollably. Throughout long human history and through deeply moving works of art, we have witnessed countless such scenes. The stories of Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Abelard and Heloise, who faced opposition but loved steadfastly to the end, continue to revive and touch hearts because they represent exemplary cases of realizing the unique free will of the human species. _pp.104~107 〈3. Forbidden Love ? Is Love Free Will?〉

Love with High Self-Esteem | Written by Jung Ah-eun | Mareummo | 228 pages | 16,000 KRW