Is Love the Closet thing to Hate?

[Revan]

I've heard this saying a lot... And can't say whether or not I agree with it...

People say it quite often. That Love is the closet thing to hate... do you agree? How can it be?

[Nathan]

I'll say yes. I'd explain but I don't have the time, so I'll do it later.

[[Syl]]

Yep. "There's a thin line between love and hate." There's also a zen quote (koan?) along the lines of "To understand everything is to forgive everything; to understand everything is to forgive nothing." When you really come to know someone, there's only two ways you can go.

And along Donaldsonian lines, with the capacity for one extreme of emotion comes the other. Sometimes it only takes a small push to turn the tide the other way. Think of how Covenant was prophesied to either damn (reject, hate) or save (accept, love) the Land.

[duchess of malfi]

When people refer to love and hate in cases like these, they are referring to extreme and very powerful emotions, as Syl pointed out. It's not the "I love potato chips" and "I hate green beans" variety that you hear so often...

We're talking emotions that make your adrenaline surge, your heartbeat soar upwards, your face to turn red, your stomach to be filled with butterfies...

[danlo]

OOOOu! Now you're getting me all tingly!

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I think that they are incredibly close, and both involve a level of emotional investment you have to the subject of the emotion. Either way, you have to CARE a great deal about them, they have to have an incredible impact to you. Consider, if you are betrayed by someone that you love, how much greater will your hurt be, as opposed to someone you just met.

[Avatar]

I think that they are incredibly close, and both involve a level of emotional investment you have to the subject of the emotion. Either way, you have to CARE a great deal about them, they have to have an incredible impact to you.

I agree in a sense. I certainly agree with Caer that we're dealing with intense/extreme emotion here, and that simply possessing the capacity for one makes it likely that you can feel both.

I think the comparison lies more in terms of that intensity than anything else. I don't think that if you hate someone, you will suddenly fall in love with them, although I suppose the possibility is there.

I like Caer's Zen proverb as well. Perfect understanding leaves room for no other option. One or the other. Thats it.

--Avatar

[Nathan]

Hate and love are just inversions of one another, funny thing is that they're not mutually exclusive.

[CovenantJr]

Yes, I agree. I can only speak for myself, but when I feel powerful love, and something changes, something pushes the balance the other way...I still have the strong emotion, and if I can't love, hate is the only other option. When it's a question of extreme emotion, and one pole is removed, there's only one option left.

To explain it in perhaps a less whimsical manner: Anything that can cause you immense love can also cause you immense hate. For example, if you love someone who betrays you, you can switch suddenly to hating them with a passion because you loved them. I've never experienced it in reverse, so I can't comment on whether you can suddenly love where before you hated.

[Baradakas]

When it comes to family, I agree it can be a very fine line. But I love my girl, more than anything in the world. Even when we fight, all I have to do is look in her eyes and I forget why I was ever mad.

[Avatar]

Which can make it very difficult to win any arguments

I know how you feel. Theres nothing to be done about it though. Oh Well...

--A

[Iryssa]

Funny thing I find about love is the unique kind of power the one you love has over you...when I was engaged, my then-fiancé could make me cry harder than I ever cried before, and he could have made me happier than anyone else on earth (except he didn't do that one much...).

I wouldn't say that love is the closest thing to hate. I think that they are far opposites, but that they're like light and darkness; when you have been in a great light, the darkness seems so deep, but it would not bother you if you hadn't been in that light. Kinda like when you're outside on a dark night with friends, and your eyes are used to the darkness until one of your friends shines the flashlight in your face...

[Avatar]

Funny thing I find about love is the unique kind of power the one you love has over you...

Very true. It's something that can, in a way, be very frightening to realise. That you don't have complete control of your life when it comes to the person you love.

...I wouldn't say that love is the closest thing to hate. I think that they are far opposites, but that they're like light and darkness; when you have been in a great light, the darkness seems so deep, but it would not bother you if you hadn't been in that light...

And that's true as well. You only really realise what you had, (the light), when it's gone. Perhaps we (humanity) can't have one without the other?

I've heard people curse the light when it goes, because without it, they'd never have known they were living in the dark.

It's probably one of the strangest of human conditions.

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I think that its the realization that the level of power someone has over you, in your attachment to them, can be used against you to cause pain (inadvertantly or no) that has the potential to take love and give it a flavor of hatred...that's just my experience though. Not a lot can make you feel as vile and ineffectual.

[CovenantJr]

Looks like I am just speaking for myself then

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Naw man, I remember when I found out my gf had feelings for my best friend, and he returned them, I just about wanted to kill her. In the not nice way. I know where you're coming from.

[The Dreaming]

Hmm, I really mistrust this saying. As a rational human being, I am personally able to find and eliminate hate from myself. I think I can honestly say that there is no human being on this earth that I hate. Does that make me incapable of love? By no means. I believe that love needs to be completely boundless. Is there a thin separation? I really don't think so. One is the highest thing a human being can aspire to, the other is the lowest form of human behavior. Would Lord foul say there is a thin line between despite and love? What was the last thing the creator said to a principle in the story? They are dualist emotions. Only human imperfection makes the line blurry.

I am not saying I am vice less, I am just saying that I am able to function just fine without one half of the continuum.

I know this will sound silly, but in the game "Knights of the Old Republic", one of the things that amazed me most was that they actually managed to make the Dark Side actually tempting to followers of the light. They chose to tap into the real side of evil. The evil that we can actually see in the real world. Hate and evil have a compelling argument. We see it all the time. "Only the strong survive", and such rubbish. Watch Macbeth, I think there is a truer representation of what evil actually is than anywhere else in literature.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I see where you are coming from, definately. Just curious, do you think you have a breaking point, that someone could do something to you to inspire hate? Or have you thrown hate off permanently in its entirety?

[The Dreaming]

I can get angry yes, but hate is not anger. Hate is cold and rational. Once I get the point where I am cool and rational, I will keep myself from hate conciously. I know it is evil, and I can avoid it. That doesn't mean I never lose my temper and always remember to turn the other cheek. It means I never hold a grudge and will forgive any transgression.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Of course you get angry! In fact, I think we've seen you angry a few times here...
No, I meant, do you think there are limits to your detachment at all? Or is it a fundamental principle you've accepted, that you think altered you permanently.

If there are limits, then I know where you are coming from, and will continue my work to reach that level. If it is the later, I want to hear about it!