If I love, that is an enduring feeling or state of being I have, and it shows itself in acts of kindness, affection, attraction, the desire to be in the company of, to incorporate (consume?) somehow. From food to females, and other subjects I would include but can't now think of, one might say in my case that he loves and this is a good and positive feeling he experiences and reveals repeatedly through word and deed.
If we think of love as a force or energy which causes certain acts, and perhaps self-sacrifices, the opposite, a force also, is easily hate. Hate has no disposition to be kind, show affection, attract. Hate endures, as in the case of love, but with the object to eliminate, avoid, and continue avoiding. It is a negative force, perhaps more a rationally-driven than an emotionally-driven one, and once one has this attitude or perspective or disposition, it no longer takes up much space in conscious attending, or doesn't have to. If it does, it is then a hatred in need, in need of destroying or hurting perhaps.
I love because I do. I hate because I have decided not to like, love, or have anything to do with an object or a person or a people. Hate seems to be the equal but opposite force of love, but perhaps slightly, qualitatively different beyond its negative charge.
If love and hate are seen as states of being more than forces which impel and compel us to certain deeds and decisions, then the opposite is really the absence of that state. The opposite then of love is not-love, a kind of vacuum. The opposite of hate is perhaps not-even-the-recognition-of something or someone, a kind of ignorance or obliviousness, also a vacuum, albeit invoked from time to time as a suspect object or subject creeps into awareness.
Given this perspective, which will surely not sway the tide of the prevailing received conception of love and hate as opposites, we have a curious condition. If one is in the state of not-love, then the world, except for a few friends, relations and relationships, does not love, for example, me. By the same token, except for the very few in my tiny psychological and physical spaces, everyone else has no feeling for or about or against me, unless they include me, an individual, in the generalized other.
If we don't bring entities from the glimmer of awareness into consciousness, we have no actionable feelings. It is as if the world, the vast majority of it, whatever conception of the world we have, doesn't exist at all unless brought to mind. It and they are hardly subjects or objects to be concerned with or about, which in the main makes love and hate local and personal phenomena.
There are those, and I was one of them, who venture out into the world to spread love (compassion, goodwill, direct assistance). Obviously there are also those who choose to go out and commit hate. In these cases, all we accomplish is to widen tiny circles of influence. By venturing out, we may also weaken the relations that we have already made through our love, or our hate. That’s but an hypothesis. Extraordinary acts of love and hate we become aware of from time to time, and these no doubt have some influence on the affairs of the world. The abstract and impersonal can be forces in the world, but they are of a different order, perhaps one might call them political.
But the condition remains. My love or hate or friendly or unfriendly dispositions--who knows or cares about these? no one. And this is because the opposites of these define the sphere of personal feelings. The rest is dark matter. It is there but no one sees, hears, smells, tastes, or touches it. Nor can they unless they come through the ether and are psychologically closer.
The opposite of love is not hate but a vacuum, and this is perhaps scary. The opposite of hate is also a vacuum, and perhaps that is something good or not; at least it feels to me a more sure thing. If there is someone or something to hate, we define ourselves. We have shape and contours and borders. If there is someone or something to love, we also have definition, but in its or his or her absence we are without completion, less well defined.
