It is interesting, I think, when the 'evil' ones and the 'good' ones can
both agree that their philosophies are nearly completely the same. It
really might make one wonder whether either one is truly evil or good at
all.

Beyond that, Love and Suffering are as interlinked as every one of the
abstract ideas that pretentious people cling to. I love. I love with a
fierceness that most cannot handle, actually. And I bear the pain of
watching my loved ones suffer. I do not cause them suffering when I can
avoid it, and while I can I try and avert their suffering as best I can.
But you can never really stop someone from suffering.

By the way, Tenebrus, suffering as you define it is more the torturer's
definition of it than the lover's definition of it.

Further, I might add, not all suffering leads to growth. It is the
person's -choices- that form whether he grows as an individual or not.
It is the choice of an orphan, for instance, so angered with the murder
of her parents, to either live a healthy and successful life in honor of
her parent's image or to channel her anger into hatred and become a
brutal murderous creature. She makes that choice, if she chooses the
latter, she has obviously not grown.

I say that she has not grown with the assumption, of course, that
everyone can generally agree that a life of murder and thievery is
indeed wrong. When I say wrong I mean it is against a common person's
morality, because it certainly isn't against the church or the ideals
that Shallam vaunts so haughtilly in claiming that it is the one truly
good city state in Sapience.

In short, suffering and love are not connected in any specific way,
inasmuch as they are factors of the lives of normal sentient beings. To
try and form some sort of philosophy off of a perceived connection
between suffering and love is the ultimate in the abdication of Reason.

Yours affectionately,
Narxa Sparrow
(With no further title to gorge my ego upon.)

Penned by my hand on the 24th of Chronos, in the year 436 AF.