What Men Live By

The Russian author Leo Tolstoy once posed a timeless question: “What do people live by?” In his story, an angel cast down to earth finds the answer through one ordinary family. He learns that humans live not by bread, power, or fear, but by love. Without love, humanity cannot endure.

Love exists everywhere on earth; humans feel it from birth to death. An infant discovers it in a caregiver’s embrace and soothing lullabies. Siblings, though they may clash over trivial matters, develop bonds that transcend childhood quarrels. Lovers show it by cooking one’s favorite meal or choosing to prioritize each other amid competing demands. At its best, the shape of love is boundless. Love takes form wherever devotion flows — toward objects, ideas, or the collective, without limitation. Loved things become vessels for carrying fragments of the self into a wider world.

Yet the name of love is often misused, twisted into a tool of power and violence. Parents may mistakenly perceive surveillance as protection and unconsciously hinder their children’s growth towards independence. Lovers may confuse jealousy with devotion, and politicians may wield jingoistic rhetoric to justify ruinous policy. Such abuses are damaging because they distort victims’ understanding of love and leave them confused. When control masquerades as care, the controlled cannot tell love from coercion. Some even become traumatized, turning love into an object of fear.

The philosopher Erich Fromm, in his book The Art of Loving, described true love not just as a feeling but as a practice. He identified four distinguishing features of mature love: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. Care means recognizing another’s needs. Responsibility refers to taking ownership, especially in difficult moments. Respect means honoring another’s autonomy and encouraging growth, even when choices differ from our own. Knowledge means working to understand another’s evolving self, not clinging to first impressions. Thus, love is a practice, not an accident. Relationships are built over time through small acts, such as remembering important details and allowing space for disagreement without retaliation. Instead of waiting for a lightning bolt, people can learn the skills to sustain love by practicing it daily.

There may be no magic kiss to awaken us, no fairy-tale moment where love is perfected in an instant — but in real life, lovers can practice true love through care, responsibility, respect, and understanding. In doing so, they discover the greatest power of all.