The Issue Of Hate

I have long been an advocate of loving people without limitations, knowing that even the hardest of hearts has a crack somewhere in its frame. I really have always believed that, the idea that there is good in everyone, that people of every background and culture, whatever its atmospheric dilemma or challenge, has some modicum of love within them. I have pressed that point in conversation, preached it to friends who felt vitriole and angst for others. My solution was the ever popular "love wins out". Despite the events of this previous week, which felt both Godless and harrowing, I still feel that way. But, I will admit, I felt tested, tested like Job in the Bible and tested like the old man in Hemingways The Old Man And The Sea.

I don't like being tested. I never did well with tests in school. The timing, the memorization, it all made the work at hand feel forced. I never felt like I learned anything. Whatever I have learned came from reading books, books by smart people, people who also hated taking tests. Those people went on to write books that tested the testers, bucked the system, took a swing at the status quo. For them, the test was life, the biggest of them all, a test with an unknown time limit and a million ways to screw up.

This past week, I was reminded that life is "the test". And its a complicated test, where you're being asked to answer different questions at various intervals.The question for me, this go round, was could I truly embody my own principle of loving everyone? Could I rise above the easy way out, to hate passionately?

The answer is yes and no. At some point this week, a complete stranger threw a wrench into mine and my families life, a wrench that none of us expected or saw coming. It wasn't personal. It was thrown by a desperate, selfish individual who took advantage of a situation that presented itself to them. In the process, I and my wife have felt like prisoners in our own home, afraid of venturing outside the walls that usually mean safety and solace. For a typically positive person who has no trouble holding back their anger, I became something I can't stand this week, an angry man. I resented the situation we were put in. I resented that it was brought upon us by no wrong doing of our own. That resentment grew,  blossoming into something ugly and grotesque. It eventually became hate, pure, unadulterated hate for someone I did not know from Adam. This hate pushed me to a dark place, a place I'm not used to going, where everyone and everything annoyed me. I lashed out at friends, at family. I went to bed a few nights clinching my fists. I felt helpless.

I woke up this morning with a feeling of sadness that seemed to come from nowhere, just a pit of exhausted rage that had faded to solemn regret. There's a Metallica song titled "Wasting My Hate". I think that's what happened. I hated someone so hard that it died. It went from hate to mild indifference. I went from "I hope you get hit by a car" to "I don't care if you get hit by a car". I'm working, as I type this, to get to "I hope you almost get hit by a car and it teaches you a lesson". I realized that hating this person did not make me feel better. It made me feel worse. It made me resentful when I should feel thankful, thankful' for badass parents that raised me well, for excellent friends that have been there for me, thankful for my amazing, incredible wife who has stood by me and given me so much to be joyful about. I began to feel sorry for this person, for whatever befell them prior to this situation that has made them so selfish and delirious. They have a story too, a story I don't know. It scares me to think their place in life is a direct result of someones down fall or issue. That makes me realize that, as much as I want to be angry, I have to see things from another lens. I have to assume that their selfishness is not self taught but learned. I have to forgive them a little bit....for my sake.

I'm not telling you this is easy. It's tough. There's no part of me that likes this person. I still want to see them taught a lesson, to see them pay for the damage they've done. But I no longer want it to ruin them, to destroy their life. I've found myself hoping that, through this, maybe they see their attitude, their disease of the mind, for what it is. I've found myself hoping they get their life together and find something worth living for. I really do.

So yes I have hated and no, it didn't win out over love.

From here, I just want this ordeal to be over. I just want peace.