hate: winging it

more notes from my lecture:
Dovetailing the question "What is love?" is the question "What is hate?" Hate, like love, is one word and, well, usually one word tells us less not more.

However, American English journalist Andrew Sullivan does an exquisite job of trying to tell us more in his essay "What's So Bad about Hate," which--in a provocative twist--ends in the verdict that hate is an "unwinnable" war that is best left "unfought."

He posits that there are as many varieties of hate as there are of love: There is hate that fears, and hate that merely feels contempt; there is hate that expresses power, and hate that comes from powerlessness. There is revenge, and there is hate that comes from envy. There is hate that was love, and hate that is a curious expression of love. There is hate of the other, and hate of something that reminds us too much of ourselves. There is the oppressor's hate, and the victim's hate. There is hate that burns slowly, and hate that fades. And there is hate that explodes, and hate that never catches fire.

Finally, he says that "Hate, like much of human feeling, is not rational, but it usually has its reasons."

On a whiter note, things are looking up here in Cleveland: the small mountains of snow that have temporarily lined the streets and parking lots on the east side since early January are in fact melting. Since Wednesday, several missing troops of blue-lipped Girl Scouts with order sheets and jars of dollars frozen in their arms have been uncovered. This in my eyes is a satisfactory explanation as to why no one even tried to sell me thin mints when I needed them most. So, rest assured, people: while you may be stumbling around a bit and bumping into things due to sun-induced blindness (eerily reminiscent of crawling out of a dark cave or coming out of the birth canal, right?), excavation continues and Samoas are doubtlessly and mercifully and LOVINGLY on their way...