2)              Hard

Although it is very simple to separate things into opposites, it is much more difficult to disallow something from having an opposite. By definition a hard egg is not a soft egg. By definition the opposite of a hard egg is a soft egg. If you can see the egg is hard, it’s probably not soft. Then again, all eggs have hard shells.

Difficulty is likened to hardness. If a brick is hard, it’s going to be difficult to look at. Hard water is soft to touch, feel and rub in your eyes but has more tiny hard bits than soft water. If a man has a hard face, it’s not because no one can work out what expression it’s showing, it’s because if you smashed a plank on it the plank would splinter leaving nary a splinter. Maybe he looked at bricks for too long. All the same in genera hardness is an oversimplification. Why is it that a hard case can have a soft inner? Wouldn’t you just call that an “average” case? If you think watching TV is hard then you’re looked at like some kind of infantile mutant who has grown far beyond the correct height or weight.

What seems strange to me is that because we’re all so different, it is definitely true that everything is hard. The relativistic application of the word means that on average, everything is hard to someone. I guess that’s got to be one of the main reasons that Capitalism works. We can’t be bothered working out how to replace spark plugs or buy new toilet paper so we get others to do it all. The opposite of hardness therefore lies rooted in Socialism, an ideology that purports to even the hardness playing field by creating all as close to equal as possible. In this scenario, things are less hard on average because we’re all brought up to be equals. Ironic that humanity wants to make things hard; socialism is too hard to execute without corruption.