honest question about hate:

“In or­der to love who you are, you can­not hate the ex­pe­ri­ences that shaped you.”
—An­drea Dyk­stra

 

Is hate nor­mal, or is it ex­cess or a de­fi­cien­cy?

I don’t know if I can hate any­one. Like, I’ve been test­ed fre­quent­ly in life, on this point, late­ly. I’m not just speak­ing hy­po­thet­i­cal­ly.

I couldn’t hate the man who caused my brother’s death, and I es­pe­cial­ly can’t hate any­one who does any­thing be­low that. Even anger, bar­ring one or two times, in my grief where I was just re­al­ly out of con­trol in-gen­er­al, is fleet­ing.

I feel like, af­ter the mur­ders in my child­hood, the at­tempts on my own life, and the bul­ly­ing, and the get­ting over my rage is­sues as a child/young teenag­er, and every­thing, I just don’t get hate­ful thoughts to­ward peo­ple. I feel bad for them. Is that odd?

I’ve found my­self, sev­er­al times, get­ting told that’s weird. Usu­al­ly by peo­ple un­der­stand­ably in the mid­dle of their anger, which makes me think their judg­ment might be stilt­ed. But still, I feel the need to ask.

Un­der­stand, I’ve been ac­tive­ly study­ing my­self and my in­ner work­ings, to work with my De­pres­sion, for 17 years. I joke, and I have a lot of inane hu­mor about my­self and life in gen­er­al, and it all comes from that self work.

And along with that, I’ve had to study how oth­er peo­ple work (the best that any­one can, at least) and the truth is … It’s not that I ac­cept every­one into my life and let them do as they want. I’ve learned that I don’t have to (and couldn’t even if I want­ed to) fix any­one, years ago, and much less do I have to deal with their shit.

But there is so much that caus­es peo­ple to fall apart, and hurt oth­ers, that I don’t even ex­pe­ri­ence the hate.

And I’ve got­ten in ar­gu­ments all over 2019 with peo­ple who won­der why I can’t hate some­one or some­thing. It’s not that I think what they do is ac­cept­able. And it’s not that I ac­tive­ly choose not to hate some­one.

I just don’t think I have that part of me, any­more. Maybe it’s due to the trau­ma of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing so much rage when I was younger, or some­thing like that process, but I find my anger flits out in some­times mo­ments. And it’s been that way for a decade, at min­i­mum. And it’s not that I lose my dri­ve, or my pur­pose, or that I’m ap­a­thet­ic or don’t care. It’s the op­po­site.

I re­mem­ber this thought, around 22 years old, en­ter­ing my mind: For me to sit here, and stew in hate, is a waste of time. It would be bet­ter spent fix­ing things and be­ing pro­duc­tive in heal­ing. And since, that process has be­come my in­stinc­tu­al go-to when I hurt – I think – be­cause I’ve had to prac­tice it so much.

That’s all just guess­work, though. There’s so much about the sub­con­scious and my in­ter­nal world that I may nev­er di­rect­ly un­der­stand.

But, I sup­pose, the point is: Just be­cause some­one doesn’t ex­pe­ri­ence rage, or hate, or anger like you do doesn’t mean they’re less pas­sion­ate. If you know me, you know I try to be pas­sion­ate and com­pas­sion­ate, and be present with peo­ple.

And is that ac­tu­al­ly weird? I don’t plan on chang­ing it, if I hear the an­swer is yes, be­cause I love this part of who I am like I love the rest of my­self.

And I’m in no way say­ing I’m per­fect, or flaw­less, or any of that nar­cis­sis­tic shit – I very much rec­og­nize the way I live is far from per­fect, and just as im­per­fect yet valid as every­one else’s lives.

But I do like learn­ing about how peo­ple see the world. So, to you, and your per­cep­tion of the uni­verse, is hate and anger a valid and nec­es­sary com­po­nent of life? I can imag­ine a few very sol­id ar­gu­ments for it.

 

—david loret de mola

Flom­mist David Loret de Mola is a Grand Slam Po­et­ry Cham­pi­on of Sacra­men­to with Sac Uni­fied Slam Team and Zero For­bid­den Goals who has rep­re­sent­ed the City of Sacra­men­to in the Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam, and 100 Thou­sand Po­ets for Change in Saler­no, Italy. Copy­right © 2020 David Loret de Mola. Im­age: Blur­ry foto of Egon Schiele’s gig poster for a lec­ture by Egon Friedell: Shaw or the Irony (de­tail), 1910, pub­lished 1912.

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