01 April 2008

Diving deep in a well of hate

They other day a client I met at a shop I used to work at casually mentioned one of my former co-workers. This co-worker is someone I hate. I know, hate is such a strong word, and I hate that I hate this person. I don't want to devote this energy to the hatred. I have a reaction that makes me feel physically ill, drunk on this hate. This person is someone I am sure does no good for anyone in this life, a self-professed bully, a racist, a sexist, this person is ugly body and soul.
As well as fueling the occasional entirely petty and non-threefold-law respecting curse, this is an occasion to think on the nature of hate. (Note that I am positive with the amount of ill this person spreads, I have no fears on rebounding negativity.) Like love, I can't turn it off like a tap, there is no way of gaining a chokehold on this raging beast. I am in a passionate hate affair. I no longer even hate my ex-husband this way, having cheerfully achieved indifference as to his existence.
Raven Kaldera, a wise neopagan author, ( to name drop, I totally met him, and he was really interesting, as was his boy) has said that one must let one's monsters free to play occasionally lest they break out of their prisons and rampage. I think having this person as a target may let the hate monster stretch and leave everyone else that I value untouched, but this, unfortunately, is not the case. Once hate gets free, it stirs the silt on it's way to the surface, and teeth grinding resentment and anger come along for the ride, along with the scampering and malformed hate cousin, self-hate.
Overall, like when falling in love, when everything is bubbly and giddy and warm, treading through the hate makes everything angry and hard. I have to check my knee-jerk nastiness over and over. I think that letting anger out can be good, but when it gets loose in a relationship there is a ton of fall-out to clean up, and it can damage trust permanently. I have worked hard on my trust and gentleness with myself, turning off the shitmouthed commentator, and try to apply this to my friends as well. Overall, this makes me hate the hate harder, since because of it I'm on edge. I can't turn it off, I can't starve it out. It's a major influence on my decision to remove myself from the regular exposure to the object of my odium, and those similar. It may also be the main reason I've never been very successful at the friendlier and more well-lit paths of paganism. On the other hand, it can make for a fantastically effective petty curse.

1 comment:

Ninian said...

I love reading your self analysis. The followers of the "friendlier and more well-lit paths of paganism" often bicker and are bitchy... but not to your face.

blessed be!!! Blargh