HATRED AND HAVING ROCKS IN OUR HEADS!

HATRED AND HAVING ROCKS IN OUR HEADS!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© May 12, 2010

“Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.”

Honore de Balzac (1799 – 1850), French novelist

* * *

REFERENCE:

In my book, “The Taboo Against Being Your Own Best Friend” (1996), I write:

“Metaphorically, we all have rocks in our heads, snakes in our secret gardens. Our snakes sunning themselves on these rocks symbolize our fantasies and wicked thoughts. To deny their presence is to throw our lives off balance, out of control, as if suddenly pierced by the deadly venom. What we do is one thing; what we think is quite another. No one is absolutely good or absolutely evil, but a combination of both. If we ignore one at the expense of the other, we are bound for trouble. To respect our wickedness gives us an advantage. Others less self-accepting may stumble on their snakes at any time, whereas we ever alert gingerly step around ours. We don’t deny that they are there. Instead, we even use them on occasion. Creative people do to stimulate their visionary powers. Fantasies are an important source of energy, not so much to be acted on as to widen our horizons.”

* * *

I’ve been writing recently about violence, and the disruptive nature of our ways, but not about hate or hatred.

We've all encountered hatred. We can generate hatred just by being ourselves doing what we do. We cannot govern how others see us. You cannot neutralize animosity by due diligence. That is not only naïve but counterproductive. Envy and jealousy are terrible poisons of hatred, what Byron called the “madness of the heart.”

* * *

An author wrote a book more than a half century ago on optimism, went back to his hometown for a high school class reunion, only to be greeted by one of his classmates with the comment, “I don’t remember you being particularly smart. In fact, I remember you as being pretty much average. How can you explain your success?”

The author first took umbrage at this remark, then gathered himself, and smiles. “It’s true. I wasn’t much was I?”

This throws his classmate off his aggressive stride leaving him speechless.

The author continues. “Can I share a secret with you?”

The classmate more puzzled then ever. “Yeah, why not?”

“I’m still not much today.”

“How can you say that? You write books, get your name in the paper, have your profile on the Internet, articles in national magazines, and I hear you're independently wealthy. What's that suppose to mean?”

“Exactly what I said. I’m still the same person you remember, still plugging away still asking embarrassing questions.”

“Yeah, you did that all right sometimes made a fool of yourself as I remember.”

“Still do as a matter of fact." He grins. "You probably remember me as a bit of a grind, had to work hard for my grades.”

“True.”

“I still work hard for my grades.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I’m talking about report cards. What kind of a report card do you get today? I remember you were quite a student in high school.”

“Report cards? I don’t get report cards anymore. What a foolish question.”

“But you do. Everyone does.”

“Now, you’re not making any sense.”

“Everyone gets a report card every day of their lives. I work as hard today as I did those many years ago to get the best report card I can earn. I see you chose to stay here and work in your father’s business. What kind of a report card do you think you’re getting?”

His classmate takes out a cigarette, stamps it hard against the pack, lights it and blows smoke into the author’s eyes. “You’re reminding me what a bore you were in high school.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

“You always had a book in your face with a smug expression. A lot of people resented your arrogance.’

“That still is not an answer.”

“Well, I guess I still get straight ‘A’s’ every day, how’s that for an answer?”

“That’s good if it’s true!”

“Of course it’s true.”

“If you say so.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean it’s excellent if you believe it to be true.”

“And you’re assuming that it's not?”

“I’m not talking about that grade.”

“Then what?”

“It’s the grade of satisfaction, the grade of personal fulfillment, the grade of loving what you do and doing what you love.”

“Who’s to say that isn’t so?”

“No one, but you. You see you’re the grader and the one being graded.”

“So?”

“You’re still doing the same job you were doing out of high school decades ago."

“So?”

“You’re still living in your family’s home.”

“So what? I inherited it, as well as the business.”

“There is nothing wrong with that if it makes you a happier healthier person.”

“You’re saying I’m not?”

“I’m not saying anything such thing. It is not for me to judge. It has been my experience that the more stimulating our life the more positive our frame of reference, and the more generous our spirit.”

“Translate that into English.”

“Are you happy?”

“Not especially. I don’t know anyone who is happy. Are you happy?”

“Very much so.”

“Then you’re lying.”

“No, I’m not, but then I must ask you another question, are you content?”

“Of course not. How could I be content if I’m not happy?”

“You have a point. They do go together. Are you loving?”

“I love my wife and kids I guess.”

“You guess or you know?”

“Let’s leave it at that. My kids are grown up and not too responsible. They’ve always got their hand out.”

“So sometimes you don’t like them. Do you ever hate them?”

“Hate them?” He stubs out his cigarette and rubs his jaw. “I don’t know where this is going.”

The author waits. Then repeats the question.

“No, I don’t hate them or anybody.”

“There you have it.”

“Have what?”

“The problem.”

“What problem?”

“Your report card might be straight ‘A’s’ as you put it, but you’re flunking life.”

“Don’t get nasty. It doesn't suit you.”

“I don't mean to be nasty. I mean to be honest. I've told you I’m the same as you remember me.” He pauses. “Let me put it another way, have you ever hated anything?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, like hypocrisy, jargon, secrecy, intolerance, bigotry, oppression, racism, injustice ..”

“You calling me a racist?”

“Are you?”

“No, but there are certain people I dislike.”

“People you dislike but don't hate."

"Yeah."

"People who are different than you are.”

“Yeah.”

“People of different color and ethnicity.”

“Yeah, people like that. People I don't have anything in common.”

“Also I would suggest people who move on and don’t stay the same.”

“Yeah, people like you who forget their place.”

“Yes, people like me.”

“Now that you’ve said it, yeah, people like you, who think they’re better than people like me.”

“People you compare yourself to.”

"Pardon? I don't follow." The comment seems to throw him. “Oh, now you’re saying I hate you.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“You just dislike me.”

“Well, there is something to that now isn't there? You come here all smiles and self-importance to bless us struggling nobodies with your presence, so what are we supposed to feel?”

To himself he says, as classmate to classmate. "It’s true I’ve moved on, that I’ve had a different career than if I had never left, but it has been a career full of risks and pain, hardship and disappointments, failures as well as some success. I was drawn to the work I love and found love in that work. And yes, contentment and satisfaction. Do I hate? Of course, I do. I hate the things I mentioned. Do I have a fondness for this place? Yes, I do. Have I run into others like you along the way? Every day.”

“You must provoke them.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Well, you’ve provoked me now didn't you?”

“As I recall, from your opening gambit, what you see me as being has provoked you.”

“Now that is not fair, not fair at all!”

“You were a good student, right?”

“We’ve already established that.”

“Much better student than I was.”

“We’ve established that as well.”

“Success of others reminds you of your personal disappointment. When you read of someone winning a prize, do you think ‘I could have won that prize’ if I had the connections?”

He smiles. “It’s true. You know it’s true. I could have been somebody.”

“No, I don’t think so. You think a somebody is different than you are when a somebody is very much the same. Being a somebody is not being important. It is doing what you love.”

“You’re being sarcastic, right?”

“No, I’m being honest. You see, you compare and compete in your head but not with your heart. You don’t see me as a classmate who happens to be an author. You see me as an author who happens to be a classmate. That angers and dispappoints you. Why him, you think? Why not me? You take pleasure in wishful thinking.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’ve already established that you are a nobody implying you want to be a somebody. You think a somebody worries about being a nobody when it never enters his mind. He is too busy fighting his own demons.”

The classmate shakes his head. “You were always squirrelly.” He throws his hands up. “I haven’t understood a word of this conversation," he says and walks away.

The author watches his retreat with sadness in his eyes.

* * *

WE ALL HAVE ROCKS IN OUR HEADS

Life is war. It is a violent and all consuming war from birth to death. It ends with the truce of death. In this constant war, the body is fighting to survive unbeknown to the mind for the host body is governed mainly by an autonomous system. Despite the cavalier disregard of the mind to practice good sense, the body uses its full arsenal of weapons to combat disease, tolerate dissipation, and endure indulgence with monumental patience.

Another war goes on with the spirit. That war is not autonomous but requires the attention of the host. It is a personal war as violent as the war of the body. The spirit is fragile and requires many outside factors for support to sustain its vitality, viability and resilience.

Education supports the spirit, as does experience, as does religion, as does meditation and reflection, as does prudence, but most importantly, as does self-awareness and self-acceptance. With acceptance there is tolerance, tolerance of personal inadequacy and tolerance of others as they are found. It leaves little room for denial where the demons thrive.

There is no shame in personal faults as humiliating as they sometimes can turn out to be, if we accept them as part of our nature. There is no shame in our personal biases as embarrassing as they might become, if we admit them to ourselves, and see them for what they are. We then have the temerity to gingerly step around them without provoking their wrath.

* * *

There is not one person reading this that can escape having been largely formed by others. We come into the world mainly amorphous with little sense of ourselves other than as others describe, program and reinforce that self. We cannot escape our culture or how we are educated to perceive the world.

It is the dichotomy between what we are told we are and what experience tells us we actually are that is the central dynamic of life from birth to death. Many of us get stuck or stung by not respecting this dichotomy, or failing to get inside its hidden meaning.

It is why British Prime Minister Gordon Brown tired and forced out of his nature to campaign on the public stump, talked to a citizen with great magnanimity only to stereotype her in private as a “bigoted woman.” Unfortunately, his recorder was still on and the comment became a national political disaster for him. He lost the election.

The irony is that those things we hate most in ourselves that remind us of our parents are most likely deeply engrained in our personalities, and can color our behavior in the flippancy of the moment.

We are all emotional jigsaw puzzles the cumulative pieces of a life mainly put together by others. The soldiers of control are fear, shame and guilt, and similar programming that bombards our fragile psyches. There is no escape. We are what we are and the more aware we are of that fact the better prepared we are to fight this war of life by moving with it instead of against it.

* * *

Biases programmed into our system can be described as rocks in our heads. On these rocks sunning themselves are our snakes, which are secrets of shame and guilt and fear and incidences in our lives that we wish had not occurred, but had.

The inclination is to walk blindly through our Secret Garden hoping not to disturb these dark demons sunning themselves. So, like Prime Minister Brown, we step on one, it bites us, and we say, that “bigoted woman.”

Everyone has a Secret Garden. If no one had any rocks or snakes sunning themselves on these rocks, they might as well be dead, because they certainly wouldn't be very human.

No one can get through life without making mistakes without stumbling without falling, indeed, without doing something they wish they had never done. These things make them the vibrant person that they are.

It is knowing what makes us “us” that is important. It is not important to share our Secret Garden with another living soul. It is important that we are fully aware of the contents of our Secret Garden so as to avoid stepping unwisely. To have a friend you must be a friend starting with yourself.

* * *