Presto! As if by magic you’re in hate . . . or you’re in love.
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“We have to learn to love, learn to be charitable, and this from our youth up; if education and chance offer us no opportunity to practice these sensations our soul will grow dry and even incapable of understanding them in others. Hatred likewise has to be learned and nourished if one wants to become a good hater: otherwise the germ of that too will gradually wither away.”—Friedrich Nietzsche, “Learning to Love,” Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits (1878)
Anger often seems to wash over us. We don’t choose to get enraged when someone cuts us off in traffic, it just happens. Likewise, we don’t choose to flush when someone insults us, nor do we choose to see red when someone screws us over. But these feelings fade with time. They have a half-life. All fires—no matter how hot—cool, and eventually die, when they’re deprived of fuel. One day you wake up and you’re just not that pissed off anymore. You haven’t forgotten what happened. And maybe you’re not quite ready to forgive. But the memory seems to have lost its sting.
If you want to get over it, if you want to be free of your rage, continue along this peaceful path. Let nature take its course. You’re on the Road to Recovery. Should be as good as new in no time. But if the very idea of forgiving them for what they did makes you sick, if you’re quite sure that you don’t want to get over it, come with me.
If, you want to learn how to be a really good hater, let me show you the way:
STEP ONE: MEDITATE ON THE PAST
Close your eyes and think about what he or she did to you. And be as specific as possible. What did the sky look like that day? What was on the radio? What were you wearing? Fill the memory up with every last detail. Then replay it in your mind again and again and again—like that song on your iPod, the one you just can’t get enough of. If you do this for a little while, the righteous indignation will well up in you. And you’ll feel the change: it’s profoundly physiological. Your breathing gets shallow. Your heartbeat quickens. Your palms get sweaty. And your face contorts. As soon as you’ve whipped yourself up into a white hot rage, move on to step two.
STEP TWO: FANTASIZE ABOUT THE FUTURE
Okay, now I want you to close your eyes and imagine how you’re going to get back at this person, how you’re going to get revenge. If you’re going to tell them off in front of a room full of people, prepare the speech in your mind. What words are you going to use? Think about how good it’s going to feel to humiliate that person, to watch them suffer. It’s your revenge fantasy: fill it up with juicy details. And be as specific as possible. Then replay it in your mind again and again and again. Once again, the effects of this perverse form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are profoundly physiological: your pupils dilate, a demonic grin spreads across your face, and pleasure centres in your brain are activated. You feel energized, alive, and possessed by a passion that’s undeniably pleasant.
Presto! As if by magic, you’re in hate!
Strange as it may sound, long-term romantic love seems to be sustained by the same willful cognitive processes. We don’t choose who we fall in love with. It just happens. That’s why the image of Cupid slinging his arrows into the backsides of hapless innocents makes so much intuitive sense to us. You meet someone, lock eyes with them, and—BANG! BOOM! CRASH!—you’re powerfully drawn to them.
The psychologist Jonathan Haidt claims—in The Happiness Hypothesis (2006)—that the brain scan of someone who’s “in love” is virtually indistinguishable from the brain scan of someone who’s high on cocaine. But alas, this kind of intoxicating love fades—like rage—with time. One day you wake up and you’re just not “in love” with your partner in that crazy way you were in the beginning. Don’t get me wrong: you still love them, you’re still attracted to them, and you still want to be with them. It’s just that you find it easier and easier to focus on other things (e.g., work, school, friends, family, yourself, etc.). To some extent this is healthy. But going with the flow on this score is risky. If you’re committed to this relationship, if you want to stay with this person, being passive about your love isn’t wise. After all, love has this funny way of slipping through your fingers if you’re careless of heart.
If you want to be a serial monogamist, let your love fade and move on to the next flower. But if the very idea of breaking up with Mr. or Mrs. Right makes you sick, if you’re quite sure that you don’t want to get over this person, come with me; if you want to know how to love somebody long time, let me show you the way:
STEP ONE: MEDITATE ON THE PAST
Close your eyes and think about all of the good times you’ve had with this person. And be as specific as possible. What did the sky look like that day? What was on the radio? What were you wearing? Fill up each one of these memories with delicious details. The more the merrier! Then replay these beautiful memories in your mind again and again and again—like that song on your iPod, the one you just can’t get enough of. If you do this for a little while, the magic of love will well up in you. And you’ll feel the change: it’s profoundly physiological. Your breathing gets deeper. Your heartbeat quickens. And a sweet smile spreads across your face. When you’ve brought yourself to the brink of your own little home-made nostalgia-gasm, it’s time to move on to step two.
STEP TWO: FANTASIZE ABOUT THE FUTURE
Okay, now I want you to close your eyes and imagine all of the good times you’re going to have with this person in the future: vacations, kids, grandchildren, growing old together, and all the rest. Think about how good it’s going to feel to be with this particular person for the rest of your life. It’s your future, your fantasy: so fill it up with tons of juicy details. And be as specific as possible. Then replay it in your mind again and again and again. Once again, the effects of this amorous form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are profoundly physiological: your pupils dilate, your skin tingles, and your body feels enveloped by a warm glow. You feel energized, alive, and possessed by a passion that’s undeniably pleasant.
Presto! As if by magic, you’re in love!
Love and hate are impenetrable mysteries to the man who lacks a strong will, a good memory, and a lively imagination. He’ll never know true love.
Or true hate.
—John Faithful Hamer, From Here (2015) * * * Photo: Marina(im.back)/Flickr
Devoted NOT Deluded. —
Just to be clear, what I’m advocating in “Me Hate You Long Time” is amplification NOT fabrication—viz., I’m talking about amplifying and maintaining emotions THAT ARE ALREADY THERE. I’m NOT talking about fabricating emotions out of thin air. I’m NOT talking about creating something out of nothing. And I would never advocate that repulsive “fake it till you make it” idea. After all, my friends, I want you to be devoted NOT deluded!
—JFH
Cbt has been proven to be effective over and over again. The author is merely showing how constantly ruminating on your received slights can build to long term rage. The flip side is a proven psych method to generate love by doing the same thing, just focusing on positives. In todays vernacular fake it til you make it. Adler called it “act as if”. This article had less to do with the grieving process than building a lifestyle of rage. You don’t grieve being cut off in traffic or getting screwed over in a business deal. You generally have only… Read more »
FYI: “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. So annealed into pop culture are the five stages of grief—introduced in the 1960s by Swiss-born psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross based on her studies of the emotional state of dying patients—that they are regularly referenced without explication. There appears to be no evidence, however, that most people most of the time go through most of the stages in this or any other order.”—Michael Shermer, “Five Fallacies of Grief: Debunking Psychological Stages,” Scientific American (October 3, 2008)
I am sorry, but CBT is BS. There is no magic to bypass the grief process. Anger is a stage of this process and most of us get stuck in a loop of denial and anger and never get to acceptance. Sure we can fool ourselves into imagining a different future, but if we don’t do the necessary groundwork, then we are just fools. We only have power in the present, not the past and future – these are mere mental concepts – fantasies. We live in the present in contact with our senses and our emotions. Sure we can… Read more »
Nothing works for grief, but anger is not necessarily a part of the grieving process. That which we imagine for our future selves becomes what we work toward, and as for living in the present, in contact with our senses and emotions, our perceptions of the present moment are no more real than our often faulty perceptions of our past. As for living in the present, in contact with our senses and our emotions, you are entirely correct in my view, and that is the definition of rational emotive therapy, a common for of CBT. Calling CBT BS, and then… Read more »