Why is it more important to love than to hate? That seemed to me a question with an obvious answer. But, if it were obvious, perhaps there would be less hatred in the world. And then I thought, why either? They are both extreme emotions: either intense affection or intense dislike. I have found that the happy marriages I have seen endure have in common the less extreme characteristic of truly liking one another as people. When they like each other as people, mutual respect seems to follow which generally leads to being kind to one another.

And then I thought, perhaps it isn’t that there is too much hate or too little love in the world, but rather too little kindness. You do not have to love someone to be kind. You don’t even have to know someone to be kind. How much more pleasant the world would be if everyone could find it in themselves to treat every person they met with kindness. No judgement based on preconceived notions because of looks, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, race, economics, etc. If there were more kindness, perhaps there would be fewer incidents inciting hatred, and more enduring love. Even within families there can be a dearth of kindness. How many times have you seen or experienced horrible unkindness meted out family member on family member?

So, for me, it is neither love nor hatred that is more important in the world, but rather kindness.

Love sets off emotional sparks and gets the adrenalin going, making the heart beat faster and bringing a sense of purpose into a person’s life. Love is acceptance of self by self, as well as other’s in the circle of life. So is it better to love than hate?

Hate, also sets off emotional sparks as well, speeding the heartbeat, increasing the flow of blood that courses through our veins. Hate allows us to rant, to shout, to scream, and those are all things that in essence helps a person to rid themselves of all the unnecessary things stored in their mind.

But I have often thought hate is a good way to cleanse what troubles me for afterward, I feel relaxed, content.

Love, on the other hand; it wrestles with all of our emotions (including hate) and can bring in a third word ... jealousy which leads to a different kind of hate, closer to envious. But that’s a subject for another time, another place.

Love and hate, two complete opposites that sit on the fence of our emotional life, directing the traffic we run across. You can neither run nor hide from these two four-letter words. They are in our vocabulary forever.

Would I prefer love over hate? Certainly. But like most things, you can’t have one without the other; like bread and butter, bacon and eggs. Words that are a perfect match.

And hate is also a strong word that can mean a dislike for someone or some thing you are passionate over, and not the passion we encounter via love. Passionate as an ultra-strong dislike. I really don’t like to use that word when revealing my thoughts aloud to people. It makes me feel biased and somewhat of a bigot.

Yet, love is also a word I rarely use. It isn’t a word meant to fall from lips, at least with a person. It’s fine to say “I love that movie” or “I love the way you wrote that story” ... you get the idea. But to tell someone you love them, is a commitment, and not to be taken lightly. And once that happens, other responsibiulities come into the fray, and that too, is a story for another time.

So love or hate, you decide. I just offered up thoughts.

Love is the eternal seed planted that always yields life when motives for sowing and reaping are pure.

Love is expressed in many forms of behavior toward one another and even toward ourselves.

We can express love through acts of kindness, patience with one another, being slow to anger, looking after the needs of one another and remaining humble in all that we do as we live a life of forgiveness toward others who have hurt us.

If we love, in truth, we have drunk of the antidote to hate.

If we hate another, the poison that we intend for their harm swallows us in our own slow death and though we may appear as living on the outside, we are darkened and buried, alive, by the hate we hold in our hearts.

It is better to love than to hate, for love is life and hate is death.

Where is the apothecary that barters in this antidote we must all drink to rid ourselves of hate?

After having been wronged, it is often the case that, in choosing to embrace the doctrines of love and resisting the deluge of retributive potentialities we imagine, we will have done a greater service to all parties involved, ourselves included.

Love, in the metaphysical sense, is the essence of creation, the nectar of the gods. In its presence, all is divine, and the individual may embrace and feel accepted in the acts which are in accordance with their inner-nature in the truest sense.

In the absence of love, the flame of eternal spirit within us is extinguished, run out of the fuel by which we remain within our corporeal husk as we dwell within this realm. Without love, there is no purpose for being, no final-cause to which we strive ever onward.

The doctrine of hate is nonextant, for none who have lived by its forbidding mandates has ever sought to preserve any sutras or pass-down any legacies, save for the smouldering ruins and sundered bodies left in the wake of those who delve into the unknowable emptiness and stoke the beast, from whose unremitting rage there is no escape.

Oftentimes, we make the mistake of believing some callous or mean individual to be hate-filled. In nearly all instances, this can be found to not be the case. The slip into an unhealthy love of oneself will inevitably cause the downfall of said individual, having made themselves vulnerable to corruption and avarice. Is narcissism not an unyielding, obessive love of oneself above any and all others?

Walk with love and play host to your emotions but remain ever wary that both ends of the spectrum are extreme.