Hate

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. "
Hermann Hesse, Swiss (German-born) author (1877 - 1962)


Two weeks after the holiday and I feel very well rested. The only snag has been the fairly constant headache I have had since I got back. One day while working, I thought I felt a little drowsy too so I did a search on "headache and drowsiness" on Google, and the first hit was "Brain Tumour". I got back to work...

Fortunately, my headache is probably more to do with my eye strain than cancer, but the brief period of anxiety was instructive. It also got me thinking about how negative thinking patterns can affect physical health ultimately, rather like a editing a document on the computer affects what gets printed out physically. What about hate, specifically? What is hate? How does it come about? What is the effect?

Well, as always, I prefer to leave the wisdom to the quotations and instead examine particular aspects of a topic. I have a theory that hate is a form of laziness. My father once said, "If you really understand someone, it is very difficult to dislike them". I believe this is startlingly true. We lurch towards hate when we abdicate the responsibility and discipline to do the work of understanding others. Understanding requires energy and effort, and many of us would rather just...hate. But is that really it? Or is there something deeper and more insidious?

Hermann Hesse raises a key point when he talks about us hating people who exhibit parts of ourselves that we have disowned. Otherwise, we would be indifferent. So is the crux of the matter that we simply have not done the work of truly understanding ourselves? Of embracing the parts of ourselves that we have disowned? Of coming to understand those parts? If we were to do this work, would we be capable of hate? There is a saying that "Projection makes Perception". We project without, what we deny within. We perceive our projections and we don't like what we see. We hate.

It is no wonder that most spiritual practices urge the practitioner to "know thyself". This seems to lie at the heart (literally) of the matter. So next time you feel yourself hating someone, take that as a signal to examine yourself. Find out what is in you that you have not understood or embraced. We must all do this. The future of the world may depend on it...


"It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. "
Andre Gide, French critic, essayist, & novelist (1869 - 1951)

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them. "
Charles Caleb Colton (1780 - 1832)

"Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. "
Richard M. Nixon, in his White House farewell, 37th president of US (1913 - 1994)

"Hate no one; hate their vices, not themselves. "
J. G. C. Brainard