All about Love: Love Song to the Nation Book 1

hooks discusses the importance of mutuality in loving practice. At the beginning of the essay, she states, “Love allows us to enter paradise” (147). Although most people want to experience love, most people have no idea how to begin loving. This confusion leaves young people in a constant state of stress. When hooks was in her 20s and 30s, she felt confident that she knew “what love was all about” (147). The two most important partnerships of her life were with men who were children of alcoholic fathers and divorced mothers who never married again. Both were similar in personality to hooks’s own father, namely in that they were “emotionally withholding” (148). After nearly 20 years with one of these men, hooks realized that he was like her father, and that she had spent years hoping to receive from him the love she never got from her father. Having never been guided in the way of love, her partner could never give her the love she desired. Similarly, he wanted from her the unconditional love and care his mother provided for him without expecting anything in return. With both partners wanting from the other that which could not be given, the two “were engaged in a private gender war” (149). In the view of hooks’s partner, the main issue was hooks’s refusal to accept traditional gender roles and assume the caregiving responsibilities of their relationship. By the time their relationship ended, hooks had become firm in her feminist beliefs but nearly “lost my faith in the transformative power of love” (150). She left that partnership anxious that “our culture was not yet ready to affirm mutual love between free women and free men” (150).

hooks faced a similar struggle with her next partner, a man who was younger than her and, like her last partner, yearned for someone to take care of all his needs. Initially, she was attracted to him because he did not embrace the traditional masculinity of dominance. However, he did not see his masculinity affirmed by society, and eventually he began to adopt more toxic, patriarchal attitudes. hooks argues that in a patriarchal society, “Nobody really has the opportunity to love since it is power and not love that is the order of the day” (152). Both men and women who hope to know love suffer from patriarchal thinking. To know love, “we must surrender our attachment to sexist thinking” (155). The practice of love takes time, honesty, and commitment; in romantic partnerships, both parties need to be willing to do the work, and both must be willing to give. Through giving to others “we learn how to experience mutuality” (164). To challenge the gender conflicts present in many relationships, all parties regardless of gender need to embrace mutuality as the foundation of their partnership. This commitment to mutuality ensures that each person’s growth is both valued and nurtured. The “mutual practice of giving and receiving is an everyday ritual when we know true love” (164).

hooks discusses romantic love. Many people, whether they know it or not, turn to romantic love to seek the love they have always wanted but never had. As a culture, Americans believe romantic love, more than any other kind of love, “will rescue and redeem us” (169). Despite this, few people enter romantic relationships already knowing how to give and receive love. hooks cites Toni Morrison’s debut novel, The Bluest Eye, wherein Morrison refers to romantic love as “one of the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought” (170). While romance certainly has the power to be transformative and fulfilling, it also has the capacity to be damaging and harmful.

hooks encourages people in her life to approach romantic love with “will and intentionality” (173). Building romance on a basis of “care, knowledge, and respect” makes for a healthy and mutually fulfilling partnership (173). Communicating honestly and intentionally with romantic partners means “we are no longer trapped by the fear and anxiety underlying romantic interactions that take place without discussion or the sharing of intent and desire” (173).

While sexual attraction is an important factor of romantic love, it is not in itself “a sign of love” (174). Sexual chemistry can be a powerful force even in troubled relationships, but it “is not the proving ground for love” (175). Pleasure in sexual intimacy does not necessarily ensure that mutual respect, care, honesty, and commitment will also be present in a relationship.

Later in the chapter, hooks describes the concept of true love. She recommends a paradigm shift around love: “How different things might be if, rather than saying ‘I think I’m in love,’ we were saying, ‘I’ve connected with someone in a way that makes me think I’m on the way to knowing love” (177). True love develops from a soul connection—“a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials” (182). Despite depictions of true love in popular culture, true love is not all about pleasure and romance; in reality, “true love is all about work” (183). The basis of true love is mutual recognition. To pursue a romantic relationship is a daunting task for many, “because we feel there is no place to hide. We are known” (184). When people commit to true love, they are ”committed to being changed, to being acted upon by the beloved in a way that enables us to be more fully self-actualized” (185). Love takes courage, and by pursuing it people run the risk of getting hurt along the way. To that end, “as long as we are afraid to risk we cannot know love” (185).

Although true love exists and everyone has the capacity to experience it, it “appears only when our hearts are ready” (186). Such was the case for hooks, who committed to finding true love when she was dealing with a cancer scare. The possibility that she may have died without ever knowing love motivated her to open her heart; she was ready to receive the love she had always dreamed of, and when she was ready, it came. Although the relationship did not last forever, the love hooks experienced within it transformed her.