The opposite of love is not hate.  The yin of intimacy’s yang is not detestation.  The anti-matter of affection’s mass is not odium.

It is avoidance, immovable impassivity, immutable phlegm.  All signifying the onset of Evil.

Enemies in war, while not brothers, if real warriors, can often see themselves in one another.  And so understand.   Thus compassionate brutality ensues.

Two in a rocky relationship, may lead each other over increasingly treacherous terrain.  They may well “hate” each other, at times,  for leading each other down a path of eventual perfidy.  Yet, while in relationship, they traverse it together, in some fashion, in some form.  One doesn’t plainly passively watch while the other slips unknowingly into an unspotted abyss that the first perceives clearly as evitable.  Decency requires at least a last minute “Watch out you stupid asshole!”

But what of violence intended to destroy love?  Is not such violence directed against another the essence of  hate?

I argue it not.  Hate can be a catalyst to violence.  But such violence is usually directed to eliminate or diminish the subject-object in some, if not all respects.  To make ‘it’ thereafter more or entirely avoidable.  And when the dust settles, the winner’s trophy is tomorrow’s aversion secured, not hate ensconced forever. 

And violence that assures the destruction of love can be executed with utter indifference, too.  In fact, such unmoved violence, even more so than the emotional variety, is closer to the very essence of evil, the antithesis of love.  It is as efficient as it is effective.

But agitated violence that’s driven by a love for violence (qua violence) is driven by a perverse what? for violence.  

And what of intentional self-destructive violence?  Very often, though not always, it’s depraved narcissism, a form of  self-destroying love.  Narcissus so loved himself that it led inevitably to succumbing to a drowning death. 

Oh, love has many forms.  Some may stretch deep into the darkness of otherworldy netherspheres.  But that stretching is always some form of energetic entanglement together.  Or reflective energetic entanglement with oneself. 

Still, love is light, whether direct or reflected, whether intense or tenuous, and everywhere in between.  And light is essential energy.  Some forms of light energy can maim us, blind us, or even suck us entirely up.  Yeah, love, too, can be a bitch. 

But the opposite of love?   The void.  Known better as darkness complete.  Evil totally ensues when nothing else transpires.  The true opposite of love is nothing.