Hate That Leads to Growth

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Don’t lie to yourself…

You’re not so pure or virtuous that you haven’t used the H word at some point in your life.

And if you think you are, you might be missing crucial growth.

All human emotions mean something.

Even when we give them a bad name…

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Recognition of hate has been one of my most humbling experiences.

I’ve had to intentionally melt it through ideas of those I respect, but don’t necessarily agree with, and having conversations that I’ve had to force myself over the line of difference in order to understand another human.

Maybe hate is a strong word, because it seems to invoke an assumption that it is the prerequisite to aggression and violence.

I’m not saying you’ve wanted to hurt or be bad to someone.

So, maybe it’s more resentment, malice, or contempt.

But, it doesn’t matter.

Bad self-esteem has shown me more hate for myself than other people, so there’s no potential for me to irreversible damage to others.

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Realizing what we hate(dislike) is to me, arguably, just as, or more important than realizing what we love.

And the reason I say so, is that nearly everyone, whether openly or discreetly, is seeking what they love/desire about life: a human(s) to spend it with, a meaningful and intentional career or artistry, and a connection to something bigger than themselves.

All for the feeling of meaning, excitement, love, peace, and whatever else makes us feel full.

Side Note:

We all want to say money and success and prestige is something we want, which I’ve come to realize as perfectly acceptable. Those tangibilities aren’t evil as they stand alone, only in the people we see attached to them. So we demonize it, and virtue signal against it…but they’re an objective and useful tool, even for our mental health.

Believe it or not, we can also attain wealth and success with commitment and a drive toward meaning, art, excitement, and love.

And so, here’s my point.

We may unknowingly keep ourselves from real growth and things insanely helpful, relieving, and advantageous to our character if we can’t look at the uncomfortable. If only we can lean into learning about the things we dislike in order to remove the stigma or negative bias so that we grow out of our blind spots.

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I’ve hated/been bitter (nonviolently) about a lot of things in my life:

Women.

Men.

God.

Capitalism.

Conventional farming, both of plants and animals.

Politics.

The toxic masculine and feminism.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blahhh….

But, is it really these things that I hate? We hate?

Or…

Is it the self-proposed poison or unfairness of each demographic or institution?

Do we find evil in these things because we expect purity or unconditional acceptance?

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I think it’s the hypocrisy that we have to see in ourselves that really helps us grow.

The ego isn’t just some prideful character trait that is attached to the hypermasculine, overconfident, heartless man…the ego is what we all use to stay within our comfort zone of the things that maintain our identity and biases.

And the way to stay blind is to convince ourselves that we have a right to the things we hate. That they somehow are an “other”, the enemy, something that we refuse to see because they don’t “see the light”. That we are the light, the virtuous, the noble.

Yet…

I want to have a deeply loving, supportive, adventurous and humorous relationship with a woman.

I want have the best quality of character and stand next to powerful and articulate men. I want to be a good man.

I don’t believe in God, but after years of theory and processing, I understand the power of the divine plain and high vibration existence, even without a god.

I’ve been benignly jealous of the super wealthy, but I shamelessly want it for myself.

I despise the danger and harmful things we ingest from careless and cruel farming, but I love food and I know the necessity of nutrition.

I think politics is a bunch of people who rarely escape corruption and a god-complex, but I don’t want their job and I want people to guide national law and economics so that I don’t have to.

It’s not the masculine or feminine that I’ve hated, but the overstep and suppression each one of them have done to the masses of men and women; the tribalism and indifference it has created. Both energies however, really, are necessary for life’s fluency, wisdom, and human connection.

I don’t have the perfect answers for how to “fix” any of these things I’ve loathed, but for damn sure, I don’t find the good in them by demonizing them.

Hate and tribalism and chosen ignorance will kill you.

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What we stand against is most often just a story about ourselves.

Something that is a shortcoming of ours, a weakness, a jealousy, or an ignorance.

It’s easier to try to dissolve and diminish an enemy, than to understand that it’s opposition is something we need to understand balance and life, and there is a direct benefit to your “enemy’s” existence.

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I’ll never be the best man I can be if I don’t actively seek and trust love that only women can give.

I’ll never be the best man possible if I can’t embrace my own underdeveloped masculinity and have confidence and belief in what it is I’m here for.

I’ll never be the best man possible if I can’t get past my animosity for religion and find my own way to secular divinity and a sacred existence and soul.

I’ll never be the best man if I can’t trust that even among the chaos and evil being done, that we will always find our way and that good humans will always pull us through.

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So often, within each one of us, we think that the intoxicating tribalism we attach ourselves to, our people, our party, our beliefs and convictions, are how we change the world.

But, I beg to differ.

When it comes to opinions, convictions, and certainties about our individual life, the greatest leap toward wisdom and worldly healing is in taking what we hate(avoid) and finding the relativity and parallel in it that shows our connections and shared humanity.

Hate, and even it’s lesser emotions of jealousy and indifference are one of the biggest issues we have today.

It’s not which human is POTUS. It’s not men or women who need to do to be better or be more desirable. It’s not money, or resources, or hierarchy.

These things will always exist and always have a moral standing. Our world and our vast population of nearly eight million people will never exist without differences.

Our differences are what make us small, irrational, and near-sighted. It’s our wading through our differences in order to find our shared humanities that matter.

If we focus on the unifying things, we more tightly(through sometimes unbearable discomforts) create bonds that help us realize that we are always stronger together.

And that evil itself is not in the other, but ourselves that we need to dissolve.

Truth and Love, Reader.

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