All you need is love

The two most powerful forces on this green Earth are love and anger. It's no wonder that these forces that elicit so much passion often intertwine in life and end up indecipherable from one another in their results. War, peace, abuse and social justice can all arise equally from these two seemingly opposite poles.\nIt's a culturally held perception that love is inherently good while anger is bad. The evidence suggests, however, a different reality entirely. Love and anger neither have any inherent nature. They are merely potential energy, a huge amount of neutral power. But human will posits within that energy far deeper meaning.\nLove and anger both have the potential to inspire a level of passion and an intensity of existence unmatched by any other force. If a person allows him or herself to feel those often uncomfortable and potentially dangerous emotions, that person then possesses the fuel to be a catalyst for positive change. It's the bleeding hearts who love humanity with all their souls who go to the frontlines to fight for immigration rights, the halting of human rights violations, and equality for marriage. In the same vein, it's the people who are boiling with living rage who become advocates for abused children, who chain themselves to trees, and who get arrested for loudly defying the establishment. Their respective passions, whether be from love or anger, give them the courage to defy convention and fly in the face of an apathetic, naysaying majority. \nThat same passion, that same powder keg, has a dark side. It is one of the faces of love that inspires jihadists to blow up marketplaces full of innocent people and bigots to advocate the dehumanization of other people in the name of religion. It's a love of self and a love of power that urges the CEOs of powerful multinational corporations to exploit their workers and kill those who organize for better working conditions. It's only a different face of the same fury that exhibits itself in the misguided anger that thrust us into the Iraq conflict. \nThe point is that all the activists, revolutionaries and social justice fighters are full to the brim with love and rage. On the same coin, all the abusive officials, corporate rapists and war hawks are also full of the same catalytic passion. It's the same blood and passions that course through our veins, the violent ones and peaceful ones both.\nTo be able to feel, to experience intensity and conviction is a gift -- an enormously powerful gift. But with that gift comes a responsibility both to act on that intense anger and love and to use moderation. To allow love and anger to give rise to hate and violence is to bastardize the gift. On the Hallmark holiday designed to Disney-fy love, it's time to remember what love is truly capable of. It's time for all of us who refuse apathy to make love to the world by honing our passion to be the change for peace and equality this country needs.