Hatred

(There are many forms of hatred... some leading up to criminal activities/terrorism... and obviously, I am not talking about such in this post, I can only talk about things that are derived from my own life).

Have you ever heard anyone say "I hate Shahrukh Khan"?.

I feel people who say that are.... very 'lucky'. Why? Because hate is a very strong word and only people who haven't experienced hate can use it so casually.

So what exactly is hate? Is it extreme dislike/ disrespect/ anger/rage - yes all of these are a part of hate but then we always have an option to avoid things that make us upset/ angry/ uncomfortable/ or feel negative, how in the world do we reach that extreme state of hatred?

Let's say, you work under a manager who micromanages/ checks/ controls every single thing that you do, who demeans/ belittles/ disrespects and gossips about you. Have you ever reported to any such manager? No? Lucky Bastard! Because I have! Let's call him Synthol. I had an instant dislike towards Synthol and so did the other team members. My rage reached hatred only because... Synthol held power. I felt helpless/ powerless and I feared losing my job (and my visa) if I rebelled.

Only helplessness, powerlessness, and fear can cause hatred - which is an extreme emotion that can cause immense rage, anger, abhorrence, abomination, mental trauma and intense levels of stress.  Unfortunately, I have experienced hatred a couple of times, I am not ashamed to admit it because hate is a justified reaction for a person tormenting us in the present, either physically or mentally, a person we are at the mercy of and either cannot free ourselves of, or at least believe that we cannot. As long as we are in such a state of dependency, or think we are, then hatred is the inevitable outcome.

From my experience hate is far stronger than love, it occupies your entire headspace, it affects your sleep, health, mood, and everything in a bad way. People are wrong when they say love and hate are the sides of the same coin... they are not... they are different coins altogether.  I might have parted ways with people I loved but I have never hated them... not even in my wildest dreams... love, for some reason, stays intact. I have only hated things that I disliked, to begin with... but had no option to free myself from... or so I thought.

Just so you know I HAD NO COMPULSION TO HARM, ANYONE, BECAUSE OF MY FEELINGS OF HATRED, but there are people who do...Hatred is a dangerous curse, it can poison an organism, it is bad for our own health, peace of mind, and general wellbeing and in many cases, it leads to hurting others.

You will get to hear from people that 'we need to free ourselves of hatred as quickly as we can and for that forgive the tormentor, have some compassion, think about where does his behavior arise from....'. Have you heard that before? It's a great speech! But it is...garbage.

Religion and morality constantly prize forgiveness and suppressing our feelings as a virtue. What kind of person would I be if I could not react, temporarily at least, to injustice, presumption, evil, or arrogant idiocy with feelings of anger or rage? Would that not be an amputation of my emotional life?

I have learned to understand my feelings rather than condemn them, to regard them as friends and protectors instead of fearing them as something alien that needs to be fought against. Though our parents or teachers may have taught us to practice such self-amputation, I think we must ultimately realize that it is in fact very dangerous.

I recently read it in an article that no teacher will beat the children entrusted to his care unless he himself was beaten as a child and forced to learn to suppress his anger. He will take it out on the children in the class without knowing why he does so. I believe that awareness of this fact could save many children from exposure to such brutality. It is not our feelings that make us a danger to ourselves and our environment, it is the dissociation of those feelings caused by our fear of them.

If we hate some characteristics... let's say...hypocrisy, insincerity, male chauvinism, mendacity or anything for that matter, then we grant ourselves the right to fight them wherever we can, or to withdraw from people who show those traits. But if we pretend that we are impervious to these things, then we are betraying ourselves.

Hatred or for that matter any emotion that we go through - sadness, fear, depression, anger or anything is a logical consequence of what happened to us... it tries to tell us something about the injuries we have been subjected to, and also about ourselves, our values, our specific sensitivity. We must learn to pay heed to it and understand the message it conveys. If we can do that, we no longer need to fear hatred. I feel it is important to ask yourself whom your hatred is directed at, and recognize why it is in fact justified? Then we have a chance of living responsibly with our feelings.

Any uncomfortable emotion is trying to convey to us that something needs to change, and for that, we need to take action. In all my hatred scenarios the person did not hold any power over me, but I thought they did, it was all in my head... so what if I hated my manager?  I could have changed jobs any day and in other cases, I had the option to burn the bridges and move on but I lingered on trying to save relationships and trying to save people around me from being hurt and all that crap. I was the kind of person, who didn't want to say anything even if I experienced bad behavior, I shed tears. I no longer do that. If I ever feel suffocated with a person/ place/ object I move away from it before it turns into hatred or fear... but here is the thing, I don't forgive tormentor/ bad behavior/ cruelty with or around me, evil or bad behavior cannot be forgiven, otherwise, it prevails, now I confront people, I tell them how bad their behavior has been.

Hatred fades away with time... but the way to deal with it when one is actually subjected to it is by accepting that what you are experiencing is that feeling, and take action, make a change, confront the tormentors, you are helpless only if you believe you are...you are powerless - only if you think you are.

There are many stages in my life that I consider as 'growing up' experiences, but every time I had to take an action or make a change in my life to fix an unpleasant emotion that I was going through...are what I consider my metamorphosis... it built inner strength... because I had to push all that weight to the corner. Nothing holds power over me anymore...

So the thought of the day is: Bite your tongue next time when you say I hate Shahrukh Khan because you are not at a gunpoint to watch his movies.... you always have options.

Hatred is a feeling, albeit a very strong and assertive one, I must tell you that it is the WORST feeling that I have experienced so far. I do not want to experience hate again...ever in my life, it is a very nasty feeling and nothing in the world is worth going through it...but don't fight the feeling, fight the cause of it... head-on.