There are many painful things we endure in life, but I think the most painful is strife. There are forces inside us and around us that drive us apart, so we all live with the uncertainty of being abandoned, never sure who may leave us or why. That makes love a very dangerous matter. To give our hearts to someone is to risk rejection. We become vulnerable to the whims of another person, and people, being the weak creatures we are, often end up hurting us. And for that matter, we’re just as likely to hurt them. So loving anyone here on planet earth is dangerous, and as time passes the wounds we suffer cause us to grow increasingly cautious, which leaves us with fewer and fewer friends.