Cruelty.

I like the idea of it.
I like the idea of inflicting it before it can be inflicted on me. I think there's something beautiful about revenge, about hatred. Compassion is soft; forgiveness, weak. Part of me understands the necessity of it. Part of me knows it to be merely a tactic.

It will never end, this struggle, and I know I will write about it in different ways for a long time. I just don't know what's natural anymore: the urge to love or the urge to hate. Sometimes I think there is no difference, but then I realize I'm just being contradictory for its own sake.

I feel like Ayn Rand. I want to write characters who are stunning in pure internal strength. To write what I lack, perhaps? I'm not too fond of what I have to do to appear . . . the way I'm expected to appear. I can't separate the tactic from the necessity, don't know if there's a difference.