DPF bloggs on the Daily Telegraph, specifically on a quote from our Queen...

Grief is the price we pay for love

I don't agree.

Grief is the price we pay for love lost. If love lost is the same as love then all love must fail.

Statistically that might be true, but philosophically that is immoral and metaphysically unacceptable. If it is the human condition that the destiny of our highest values is unavoidable oblivion then what's the point of living? Shakespeare was absorbed with this issue, which is exactly what bought him a ticket to condemnation in the Ayn Rand lexicon.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio..

thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!

Since Elizabethan times our philosophy has moved beyond this dismal conception of life, even if the new Elizabeth hasn't advanced apace!

More on this subject shortly..