This kind of self righteous oneupsmanship undermines our trust for each other and the cohesiveness of our society. It kills our freedom of spirit. It destroys the richness of experience our social interactions might have brought, with those we can now only pretend to like, at the cost of the heightened creativity that experience might have brought out. In the long run, this loss carries a grave cost for the society that accepts it. Repressive societies do not remain vital ones for very long. The problem is a basic one. We come to associate the presence of others with the impending making of unreasonable, oppressive demands, that we will have to go through an uncomfortable process of finagling to get out of (if we do at all). On a gut level, we come to dread each others' presences. Friendship itself becomes a facade. As we seek to create for the benefit of others, somewhere, down deep, we wonder who those others, we would care so deeply about, could possibly be, if we could have gone so long without meeting them.

In the end, we find companionship to be a form of work, craving to experience solitude until we have inflicted loneliness on ourselves for so long that we have forgotten what it was that we were running from. Socially reengaging ourselves, though, we are soon reminded, and we find ourselves in the position of the dog who has been inside far too long on a bitterly cold winter day, not knowing whether to go in or go out, and experiencing incredible misery in both places. This is no way to live, and so some of us will refuse to do so. Our response, if others are so put on, will be to stand up for their right, and their duty to make lives for themselves - as we encourage them to do likewise. If so put on ourselves, we shall respond, not with apologies, but with defiance. Those who would preach at us, in response, and those who would go along with them to make life easier for themselves, at the very moment of interaction, will discover how unpleasant a moment can be - and will find no peace, ever, in reward for their cowardice. This we vow, out of respect for ourselves and others, recognizing that when we speak as a society, the two are one and the same.

If it should seem strange to hear of wrath, from those who worship the embodiment of love, then I would ask what truer sign of love can there be, then the willingness to passionately defend those one cares about ? He who is incapable of anger, is incapable of love.

But we were speaking of the love of community.

If you grew up in the rabidly isolationist traditions to be found in some other cultures, we can speak to you of some of the things that come of such love, but you will lack the frame of reference needed to understand why they matter. A lifetime of separate experience separates my life from yours, and millenia of divergent social evolution separates our societies. I've witnessed those living in some of those traditions, and they've struck me as being the unhappiest people that I've ever seen. But you can't help people until they realize that help is needed, and in the case of those societies, I don't picture that happening for another thousand years. So to a large extent, I find it prudent to turn my back on those societies. I try to keep my life separate from theirs, not desiring to share in the customary unpleasantness that those immersed in it either have trouble seeing, or often, will even take pride in.

Will I explain this sort of life to you, if you are from such a background? How could I begin? How does one explain the experience of seeing color, to one born blind, or that of hearing music to one born deaf? There is a qualitative difference between this, and anything that you've ever known. This is a conceptual gulf that I'm not sure that you can cross. But perhaps this metaphor will help you understand some of the social interactions involved.

Imagine the presence of sort of a floating conversation, shared by a group of people who know each other. They break up, but when they meet each other again, they pick up where they left off, so conversations aren't so much ended as tabled, wandering from topic to topic in a SOMEWHAT orderly fashion, always growing into something new. It is not simply one conversation, with everyone rigidly locked into their seats, but a collection of a great number of them, splitting into smaller ones, or merging to form larger ones, as their own internal logic dictates, each taking on a life of its own.

The group is large enough that a newcomer can hang out with it, without feeling too conspicuous, gradually letting himself be drawn in, and not feeling that he has to shove himself in. To do the latter is to make the bonds that form feel unnatural, and uncomfortable. To do the former is to become a member of a sort of family. Not always a family that is as nice or caring as it wishes it was, but one in which you have a place in. The flow of new ideas into the conversation guaranteed that it always finds new ground, and in the course of pursuing it, people choose what they will do during it, those very activities becoming part of the conversation.

Sort of a party, yes? A very nice party, but one that has been taking place for centuries, even incorporating one's work into the play. One sees nothing unnatural in this, because one has never lost sight of what work is for, or what it can be. Not a grim struggle for survival, in a world in which such has long since ceased to be necessary, but a chance to create, and be with others.

That is what real freedom is. The chance to do things that you would never have dreamed of in isolation, or even understood why you wanted to do them. A chance to step outside of yourself without losing your individuality.

The difference between this, and being part of the life of a less cohesive society, is like the difference between making love to someone, and being raped. Oh, there is still the chance to become part of something larger than oneself, but only at the price of having someone else direct your day, with little input from you, son, and you'd better mind your place and not question why, if you want to hang around. You are presented with a choice of leaders, not a choice of companions. There is no freedom, save the freedom to randomly wander through the silently empty world that lies between those rigidly controlled settings that you are expected to find your life in.

But true freedom, is not something that you can experience on your own. To experience the wealth of possibilities that this would require you need the combination of having a lot of people enjoying their free time in one place at one time, with a minimum of arbitrary constraints, and just enough common experience to help break the ice. The paradox is that for there to be freedom, there must be structure - but it must be a structure fluid in nature, evolving in response to what takes place within it. A thing that has taken on a sort of life of its own, without being unaware of that which takes place, within itself, and without. There must be an understanding of what each may fairly expect from others, and the boundaries that mark off the limits of what may be asked of each, and by whom. And, for us to find friendship and love through the sharing of our lives, we must have lives to share, and we won't have those, if we allow others to script our lives, and never insist on making time for ourselves, or on taking some control of those lives for ourselves. If you don't love yourself, I can't love you, for there is no you to love, just a pallid reflection of another's will.

We should never imagine that this comfortable freedom can come at the expense of love, be it platonic and brotherly, or sexual in nature. If one doesn't care about those one is with, or feels that they don't care about one, this sort of intense connection will be an uncomfortable one, that you will soon shy from. There is a word for what you will experience in the process of pursuing this path - communion. The falling of many of the psychological barriers that separate you from those around you. If others pursue it with you, while your individuality remains intact, there is a sort of common awareness that those who have grown up with it, take for granted, but you won't be able to miss, after a while. If their intentions are bad, very often you don't just know it, you viscerally feel it, and it'll be an experience that rapidly turns nasty. One is either forced to seek a better relationship with those one is with, or be away from them, at least in spirit, and miss out on the freedom one knew. It simply becomes easier, to be a better person, than not to be.

Conversely, what is love, or friendship, if we deny the one loved the instinctually desired pleasures that come of closeness, and the richly textured existence made possible by it ? Is it not true, that the more that one has to share, on an emotional level, the closer that one can become to one's companion?

It is our belief, that Aphrodite calls us to the finding of this true freedom, that we find through our love, and which intensifies that love in the process. Hers is not the easy path, that we are so wont to follow, especially in times of difficulty, but it is the one that allows us to slowly build the strengths of our character, and our relationships that will carry us through such times. Without this, the other gifts we may have will help us not, and their promise at times will seem to offer us nothing more, than bitter mockery.

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