[quote=@Themerlinhawk]
[@Stern Algorithm] western philosophy is my Forte tbh so I'll let you know if I think of anything but she appears to draw heavily on eastern philosophy which I have only barely scratched the surface of
[/quote]

Here's where I out myself as a pretentious weeb. Watching the anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, I first heard of Arthur Schopenhauer's Hedgehog's Dilemma. The dilemma says people are like hedgehogs in winter, the cold forces them to huddle together for warmth, but they prick each other when they get too close, so their lives end up being having to choose between the cold (isolation and loneliness) or getting pricked (hurt by proximity). Being in science, I saw that subatomic particles like protons and neutrons have a similar behaviour, in the form of two fundamental forces: the strong atomic force, and the weak atomic force. These particles do have a tendency to stick together, creating the nuclei of atoms, but if you try to push them closer than their 'sweet spot' they start repelling with tremendous force. Something similar can be observed with cells. A living cell can be simply described as a tiny bag of water. Now most cells live in water, or a water-like environment. What determines a cell from its environment? The cell wall, or cell membrane; everything inside is considered part of the cells and 'alive', and everything outside is considered part of the environment and dead. The membrane has tiny holes that the cell uses to carefully regulate what comes in and goes out in order to keep itself alive. But if the membrane is faulty or broken and the contents of the cell mix too much with the environment, then the cell dies, it becomes indistinguishable from its environment. To establish life, it draws a boundary and establishes a 'self' that must be distinct from its environment.

At the end of the anime, spoilers, the walls separating individuals, which the anime calls the AT Field (Absolute Terror), actually breaks down and all life on earth unites into a mad, psychic soup. Though the anime never called it this, I thought the word 'love' was appropriate to describe the attraction opposite to 'terror' which was the repulsion.

So in a nutshell, inspired by a pretentious anime, I started overthinking the Hedgehog's Dilemma as some sort of universal truth.