On my way home from work, I often spend a lot of time thinking. It is a fairly long drive as far as regular commutes go so if I get bored of the comedy channel on my radio, I become almost meditative. I suppose it is actually at times a bit disassociative, because I often don’t really remember much about the drive. Anyhow, I digressed.
I have actually been listening to a lot of the music I listened to when I was younger, I guess in some sort of way to find my center, return to myself (this is actually going to be the subject of a post soon…). I haven’t listen to a lot of that music in recent years just because it tends to bring out a lot of anger and remind me of things I have tried to forget. But, in another one of life’s mysteries, as you grow and mature, you start seeing things through different lenses. Not unlike a person grows to view their childhood differently once they are adults, I was actually hearing the music and the lyrics as an adult instead of an angsty adolescent. To give you framework, I have been listening to the Korn channel on my Pandora, which plays primarily Tool, Korn, Three Days Grace, Staind, etc. based upon my likes and dislikes…it’s a little selective for me due to some magical form of AI or algorithm.
Yesterday, I heard the song I am posting at the bottom, and it started me thinking on the subject of “hate”. I say “I hate ____” a lot, usually in regard to people as a whole, rather than individuals mind you, but I tried really hard to think of if there was anyone I actually could say that I hated. And you know how many people I came up with?
ZERO.
Yep. A big, fat, NADA. And this honestly surprised me.
If I was to give you a quick little overview of my life, I think most people could find a few people in there that I could or should hate. But I came up with not one.
In fact, I couldn’t think of anything I actually hate.
Not even actions. And let me tell you, I am sure you already know but, humans are capable of terrible things. There are some things that I strongly dislike. There are things that I disagree with. There are things that I do not understand, in application, but understand as things that people do. But nothing that I hate.
I tried very hard to think about people that I could or should hate. And you know what? I couldn’t think of any. People that have wronged me, wronged my children, wronged other people’s children, etc. My current job puts me in a position to see some of the darkest things that people can and do in fact, do to each other and children. But, today, I found that the strongest feeling I could muster was pity. That is the closest I can come to hate.
As I realized this, I swear to sweet ancient baby alien space monkey Jebus, I FELT LIGHTER. There was a physical perceivable CHANGE in my body. Like I have spent so many years, anticipating and experiencing the exhausting WORK of hating people and things that it was a physical weight upon me.
It was a relief, really.
So what did I actually want to share today? Just my knowledge, I guess. Knowledge that all that emotion and hate and anger and negativity was not doing anything but weighing me down. I had to flip it. Acknowledge that my negative feelings did not affect those I direct them at in a positive way. I only made myself heavier, dimmer.
