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Monday, May 25, 2015

Emotions - Hate

I won't bother with "What is hate?" Hate is hate. We all know what it is. It's when you feel like destroying something or someone. It's when you feel resentment (another word for hate) for whatever reason. Hate defies intellect. Hate takes intellect and crushes it. Hate hates intellect. Powerful emotions rip into the dry, steady, calm intellect and tear it to pieces. If intellect is a calm sea, powerful emotion is the tsunami. Like all emotions, hate is very human. It is not a negative emotion though it can lead to actions considered very negative (violence.) No emotions are negative. If they are natural and felt by all humans, they just are. They exist as states of being and should not be condemned.

I'm writing this as I'm watching "Saved by the Bell" reruns. This was one of my favorite shows in HS. In terms of age, I'm contemporary with the actors and actresses. Watching it has brought back old memories of myself when I was around age 18. I remembered the hate of youth, at least my hate. I can't imagine anyone but the very popular and fortunate being as free of hate as possible. The rest of us feel the crushing weight of the social ladder. We are not at the top. That means we are to be criticized, to be looked down upon by at least the highest level. We learn to hate them for being higher than us for no apparent reason other than luck. We learn to hate ourselves for not being the most coveted people in our environment. We lose. We lose with the opposite sex and we lose with our own sex in terms of bonding. The lower we are on the social rung, the more hate we cannot help but have. We are human beings. We have feelings. Growing up, our lives are in front of us. They're in front of our faces everyday. We have contact with our parents and our peers, all we've ever known, on a daily basis. If we are unpopular, we are hated. We are hurt and rejected on a real, physical level. Our social happiness is compromised. In order to protect our pride, our sense of self-worth, we have no choice but to hate back (though hating ourselves is also unavoidable.) The unacceptable reaction is to act out violently. It's unacceptable because, even if we feel like we want or need to be violent, it will kill us in the world. The more violent we are, the more likely it is we will end up segregated (in jail) from the masses for long periods of our lives. The school bullies that lash out and pick fights are stuck in this vicious cycle. They're fighters stuck in a hopeless situation. Instead of swallowing their anger and hate like most, they react violently. They are the most easily ostracized members in the young world because they actually do something to provoke the hate of others. Hate breeds hate. Sociopathy (anti-social personality disorder) is a somewhat controversial and complicated issue. I don't dare say I know the proper combination of social and genetic factors that lead to it. However, if a young, innocent person is hated, perhaps because they're a young man that's effeminate or a young woman that has trouble being beautiful, it's not hard to see how such young people, emotionally immature to handle powerful emotions, can believe the whole world is against them. If they have no emotional support at school or at home, they can rightly lay claim to persecution. Combine that with inevitable hate that realization brings, along with the growing ego of age, and a hatred of people and the world is very understandable. Such people then are at risk to act out very violently (murder.) Their social world murders them when they're very young. They then return the favor. Sadly, this nearly always includes the destruction of innocents in some capacity. School shooters may be motivated by bullies but they invariably kill many people unassociated with their pain. By this time, because no one has come to their aid, young killers are satisfied with the mindless destruction of everything. "Everyone" hurt them. "Everyone" will pay. Those that have suffered, the families of the dead, then reassert the kind of hate that helped create such situations in the first place. The cycle repeats itself. The masses feel vindicated in their hate. Those at school rationalize bullying. They were right to have ostracized the shooters because of how "evil" they were. The cycle of hate continues, even after the shooters are dead (which nearly always happens.) Hate created them. Hate led them to ruin and destruction. Hate encases the legacy of their lives.

Is hate a motivator? Are we smart to allow ourselves to be motivated by hate? On the one hand, hate can lead to extreme focus and drive. Athletes are often driven by hate. If it isn't actual, it's created by them. "No one believed in us" is the most common expression. This motivates athletes to harness the surge of powerful hate, hate over being doubted or minimized or disrespected, into strength. We lift more weight when we're angry. Our bodies are more alive and energetic when hate surges through it. Athletes then produce destruction, destruction that is highly valued by society. If it's in the physical world, that means football or other aggressive sports. Such sports include the hate of the competitive mind which can spread into any activity. Chess players can hate losing and hate their opponent. As long as this hate leads to victory, it is good hate. That is how the athlete is evaluated. I was an athlete and I'm overly competitive. I hate. I hate losing. If the world is a competitive place, then I hate the world for competing with me. I don't hate people or society in reality but, as a motivational tool, I create hate and let it guide me to success. Many business people also put themselves in this position. The Japanese believe business is war. In that sense, hate is also used as a technique for success. So is hate a motivator? It can be. However, if we don't know how or when to turn it off, it can mushroom. Football players (and other athletes) that are guilty of domestic violence are an example of this. They can't turn off their angry, hateful aggression when they leave the field and their spouses or others pay the price. Hate dominates their lives and leads to their destruction.

In summary, hate is hate. It's a natural, real emotion, and unavoidable in our world. Hate can be a powerful weapon if channeled into production. It can also be a killer, a killer of the individual and a killer of others, if it's not managed properly. If it isn't, people suffer. Hate, (and associated emotions like resentment), is the most dangerous of emotions. We try to deal with it through cognitive behavioral therapy (getting a healthy viewpoint on things) or exercise (the aforementioned competition.) We even try to deal with through religion and forgiveness, trying to kill the hate we feel for those that have victimized us before it kills us. Hate is natural, normal, and dangerous.

As far as Saved by the Bell goes: It still makes me laugh.