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This may be an age-old question, but I'm new here, so here goes:
Is it easier to love or hate, and why?

Wisterious 7 Nov 7
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It is myuch seasier to hate. Real love requires commitment, concern for one or more others, makinmg oneself vulnerable to one or more others.

wordywalt Level 9 Feb 10, 2021
1

I never realy hated anybody for more than a minute 🤣 but I loved and love a lot of people for a long time 🤣. So I would say its way way easier to love. And I wouldnt realy know what I gain from hating. I know I gain a lot from loving .

1

In a given moment, it may be easier to hate. But the long term picture may be different.

Hate seems like a relatively simple thing. It requires no effort to perform. It is a byproduct of natural instincts for self-preservation. It does us instead of us doing it.

The word, love, on the other hand, is used to refer to more than just one thing. Yes, it sometimes refers to another effortless natural instinct, altruism. And if that were the whole picture then the two might just be equally easy. Many other species display both. But we humans have made of ourselves something more than our animal instincts. We have come into self-awareness and this curious ability to deny, on occasion, our instinctual urges, and take action based on "higher" principles. Certain manifestations of love fall into this category. This is not at all effortless.

In some circumstances, it may take tremendous effort and self-restraint to do the loving thing instead of the selfish thing. So for this reason I would say love is a lot harder... in the moment.

But in the long run, I think a life lived in love produces a life that's easier to live, and one lived in hate invites trouble.

skado Level 9 Nov 7, 2020
1

Whether it was dormant before or covered over, my wife's dying in 2019 brought home to me that the only value that has any merit is love. She used to say that everyone is doing the best that they can. I think that this is probably true. I cannot imagine people doing what they believe is wrong, certainly not for long. But society continually brainwashes people and one's own peers influence one all the time as to their definitions. So even Hitler and Napoleon and Trump and Margaret Thatcher were all doing the best that they could within the parameters of their thoughts. Having decided the truth in all this I realise that I should love those who cause me most distress as much as those with whom I commune. Within a few months I realised that I no longer felt animosity towards people. One must, as in all things, just accept things as they are.

1

I think it seems easier but that might be the result of being caught in a vicious cycle. A change to a virtuous cycle might make love just as easy. There is a traditionally accepted idea that we are cruel and unloving because we come from ancestors who were that way by nature but that idea is challenged by Jeremy Griffith, an Australian biologist:

brentan Level 8 Nov 7, 2020

@Wisterious That biology teacher, who appears to believe the glass started half empty and can only empty further, probably grew up in an abusive home.

@brentan IMO, Homo is not sapiens enough to end all the turmoil and suffering.

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