Why are the best and worst characteristics of humanity connected to the same color? Red, with all it's various shades, has more symbolism attached to it than any other color I think. It's used for love, passion, anger, danger, desire, sin, rage, warmth, aggression, romance, and everything in the extreme.

I think it is because these are the concepts and emotions we most associate with blood and life. One of the most haunting lines I have read in literature was in the book "The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq" It contains first hand, truly heartbreaking, tales of escape from the extremist takeover in 2014. In one part, however, is a lovely recollection by a woman of her home and the importance of olive trees to her culture and family. It's a nice break until a few harrowing stories later you are faced with this poem:

If we go back to the village, will we be in the mood to plant?
What would we plant on the land filled with bones and skulls?
What would grow?
How much blood would flow in the veins of the trees?

That last line has followed me as one of the most poignant examples of how suffering attaches itself to love. Whether it's family, home, culture, country, or something as simple as loving to plant, love opens us and destroys us. Still we let it fill our veins becuase we need it, for fuel and energy and reason to live when all else fails. It mixes with all the other shades of red to sustain us.