LIFE PURPOSE LINE : PRECIS

CHARACTER is inner conflict much of the time. We tend to have warring internal lives in which we hate and love simultaneously. This is confusing, turbulent.

But outright hate clears all that up. There are, I think, laudable ways to unite the spirit : Pursuing courage, compassion, creative expression and wisdom can do just that. But there are toxic ways as well.

Nietzsche says that people would rather have the void for purpose than be void for purpose.

Having nothing, having no purpose in the world, may be a more threatening state to the individual than hating. Hating gives you a plan for action.

YET hating is like gathering dry brush from the fields and piling it. You do that and your friends do as well. And there's a bit of pantomime to it. The hate-fests are all just among pals.

I put my hate on the internet, but that's not real. Or so one says, and the dry brush gathers until one day there is a spark and the flames jump.

The World Students Society thanks Mark Edmundson.