Meditations: Of Man And Hatred

OF MEN AND HATRED
(C) 2011 by Agetian (agetian.deviantart.com), all rights reserved.
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True, passionate, unyielding hatred - that is the name of one of those strongest
evil feelings that I have perhaps never felt yet in my life and I pray that I
will never have to. Yet, I saw manifestations of it many times, more than I
would have preferred, to be honest. It is the feeling that, according to some,
might feel satisfying, yet the feeling that might as well easily corrupt one's
soul... So, why am I meditating today about hatred?  What makes me consider
this weird phenomenon and address it in my notes?..

In my life, I have come across many things that I liked and disliked, approved
of and disapproved of. I have met many people, good and bad alike, and became
best friends with some of them and parted my ways forever with the others, yet
never in my life have I felt this ardent, unforgiving desire to destroy another
human being, physically or morally, to make another human being suffer or to
continuously do my utmost to make another human being feel as bad as I can only
possibly make him feel.

Of course, at this point you may contradict me on the point that there are,
indeed, horrible people in this world who deserve to be hated - terrorists,
murderers, fascists, and other scum like that. However, it's not the kind of
hatred I would like to address, and it's not the kind of hatred I will be
talking about here.

What I can't understand is the hatred that one good, respectable human might
begin to feel towards another. Sometimes brewing on the base of a seemingly
minor misunderstanding or difference, it slowly yet steadily grows into a strong
dislike which later turns into an open, fiery, passionate, destructive hatred.
What makes regular, ordinary people go so far as to hate each other? Not just
dislike, not just disapprove, but hate and despise them with all their
heart and soul? Stalk and haunt them and hunt them down if need be, becoming
their nightmare, the sole judge of their actions and their sole executioner? Now
that is something I never understood, and I'm afraid I never will.

I have seen several people overcome by the feeling of unwarranted hatred for
another man, quite a few of these cases happening to me in real life,
practically in front of my eyes. Inexplicable though it might be, and even
though in each case there were "reasons" provided for the hatred, as if the
person tried to find reasoning or, in many cases, an excuse for turning to the
ways of darkness, I have never ever seen anything good or positive come out of
such unrestrained hatred.

People who wholeheartedly hate others tend to become obsessed with anger and the
desire of retribution, whether warranted or unwarranted. They deserve complete
satisfaction of their hatred, and eventually they become so obsessed that they
may temporarily even forget or not care about everything and everyone around
them except for that one aim that guides them and that will make them finally
feel satisfied - seeing the object of their hatred suffer. They may be ready to
go as far as it may take and cross immeasurable distances, literally and
figuratively speaking, to find a way to unleash the desired doom on the head of
the human being that they came to hate...

And where does that take them?... What do they actually achieve?..

Seeing the person suffer and feeling the tainted satisfaction from it is usually
not enough for a man who let hatred enter his soul once. The satisfaction proves
to be short-lived, and the inner devil that is awakened by the hatred rears its
ugly head again, hissing the command words into the mind and soul time and again -
"This is not enough. You must make him suffer once more!" And so, the fire
of hatred is reignited with more power than ever before.

And so, a one-time desire for revenge turns into an abominable obsession that,
like a strong drug, resides strongly in one's mind and soul, finds its roots
there and doesn't want to let go. It taints the heart and the soul, and it tries
to force good people to do evil deeds and eventually fall from grace.

Listening to the seducing, luring whispers of the devil named Hatred, people
often become oblivious to all the damage they do to the others around them, and
they fail to carefully weigh whether such damage is even honestly and truly
deserved (and in many cases, it rarely is). And even more oblivious they become
to all the damage they do to themselves, to their own spirit - tainting it,
filling their hearts with anger and desire to unleash torment upon others above
all else.

People say "I hate it" or "I hate him/her" too much in our life... I know that
in most cases, they say it to a large extent metaphorically, meaning things like
"dislike" or "strongly dislike" instead of "truly hate". I know I used the word
myself many times, though I understand as well that I never actually meant
"hate" as in the ugly type of hatred that I described above. I sincerely wish
that all of you who read this short note never ever have to feel the true hatred
for anyone or anything. And if you ever do, please remember that such a strong
manifestation of evil is not to be toyed with. By allowing yourself to hate
another human truly, passionately, and wholeheartedly, by letting hatred become
one of the objects of your life that will satisfy you, you are also unwittingly
letting a shard of evil into your own heart, and the further you take your
hatred, the bigger that shard will grow. You don't want to let it force kindness
and love out of your soul.

Do not let hatred destroy you and make you do things that you will sooner
or later regret. Nothing good has ever come out of evil deeds, and staying on
the path of unrestrained anger and hatred sooner or later leads to evil - more
commonly sooner rather than later. Do not let yourself cross that boundary...

- Agetian, "Meditations" (I)