The opposite of courage is never fear, but indifference.
The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference.
The opposite of faith is not doubt; again, it is indifference.
The opposite of hope is not despair; it too is indifference.
And finally, the opposite of life is not death, but our indifference to the world in which we live.
Indifference is the greatest enemy of the human spirit. It stands against life and everything that gives life meaning, emptying both us and the world of courage and truth.
In one of the greatest masterpieces of literary history, Dante, in the Divine Comedy, has Virgil say during the journey through Hell, in the Persian rendering preserved here:
At the entrance to Hell dwell souls who were defeated by their own pain—people whom Heaven is unwilling to accept and whom Hell itself is ashamed to receive. These are people who lived their lives in indifference and are condemned to be forgotten, as though they had never lived upon the earth.
Aydin Areta
Complete text:
“Indifference — The Death of the Spirit and the Meaning of Life”
Farzanesh and Philosophy website:
https://farzanesh.com/?p=4607

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