“It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
— Anne Frank
One wants to believe these words. For me it’s a guiding principle and an operating principle of daily life. It works for me.
Yes, all people have flaws, but that’s different. I try to see the goodness within.
Pettiness. Hatred. I have seen it a lot lately. What’s most hurtful, in people once close to me. Age has embittered them and turned them into haters.
*****************************************************
I had a lackluster day. I was having computer problems. I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to. I wanted to go for a walk in the City but never got out. I felt logy and out of sorts physically.
I got mixed up and left a tote bag with valuable papers — on the subway, I thought, but my wife found it. I had left it behind on the way to a concert.
*****************************************************
The concert was fantastic. It was foul weather–snow and sleet. There were a lot of empty seats.
I took the subway to Queens and was waiting for a bus on a dark, deserted street corner– no one around–in sleet and rain.
Suddenly, all alone, by myself, at a deserted bus stop, my feet wet, my spirits lifted and I felt better. It was an experience akin to moments of transcendence I once read about in a book by Colin Wilson,
I texted a friend: “I’m waiting for a bus. I’m happier now.”
*****************************************************
Saint Augustine taught us that evil is human. The awful thing about hatred is that it feeds on itself and is usually inflicted upon undeserving persons whom the haters are confident will not be in a position to retaliate.
Hatred makes them feel alive and like they have their own “guiding principle” and rules to live by: Thou shalt hate. It is good to despise those who deserve your scorn.
Why do they deserve it? Because they are despicable. It’s a tautology. A closed circuit whereby hatred must be discharged upon the hated to prove they deserve it. And to prove to the haters’ satisfaction that by their cruelty they vindicate themselves. The exercising of which, they feel, perversely, exalts them in self-righteousness.
Note that I said righteousness, which is different from being in the right. This type of cruelty is never “right” and is usually based upon misinformation and hasty, false, or superficial judgments.
— Roger W. Smith
February 13, 2019
*****************************************************
Addendum:
The type of hatred exhibited by chronic haters should be distinguished from what we mean when we use the word loosely, by saying, for example: I hate busybodies, gossipers, or nosy people.
As just one example, I recall a coworker of mine once whom I just couldn’t stand. My therapist never could quite figure out why he annoyed me so. (Yet he didn’t necessarily think it was improper for me to have such feelings.) Certain things about the coworker’s personality and way of relating got on my nerves.
We worked in the same department, but I did not have to deal with him constantly. It’s just that when we did have interaction, or were working on a project together, I hated it.
But, here’s the difference between such feelings and perverse hatred. I wasn’t close to this person, and I never to my knowledge expressed any sort of anger, annoyance, or displeasure. It was more like an annoyance. (A mosquito?) With someone I was not close to. Totally different from cruelty practiced towards those close to you, cruelty meant personally for them, inflicted with relish and with a deliberate intent to wound.