Hatred

I hate things. I'm not ashamed of it. Though sometimes I think I should be. There are things that I hate rather passionately but don't hold against anyone else for their love of them. Things like Disney, musicals, cats, Edwardian England, Les Mes, and Assassin's. (I know those last two are also musicals but they deserve their own mention such is the profound well of my ire for them.)

It's probably not healthy. And I don't tend to dwell on it. Except for Disney and Cats. But that's because so many have such a profound hard on for them. And I think that's the biggest reason I can't just let it slide into a nothing more then a personal preference. Many of these people just won't shut up about. Particularly Disney.

But I think many times hatred is born from love. Or more specifically, love displaced. Love corrupted. Love and hate aren't opposites. In the same way that a rotten watermelon and a fresh one aren't opposites. They're the same thing, only one has gone sour and bitter.

For example, my relationship with Disney. Like any child born in the last thirty years I was feed a steady diet of disney films. Aladdin's and Hamlet with Lions, and Beast who turn into really lame looking princes thereby negating the entire point of the story. I watched them all. Loved them all. I watched the Second Aladin twenty thousand times when I was younger. I'm still not sure why. I watched hours and hours of all the various Disney cartoons. Hercules, Aladin, Timon and Pumba, and probably others. I bought into the dream. I wanted to find my princess as an odd little boy.

Then puberty hit. I started to notice girls. And as far as I could see they didn't notice me. I wasn't going to find my princess. And I started to learn all the proper versions of the fairy tales. And those two things  took root in my love. Rotted it. Made it sour and bitter hate.

And that's why love isn't the opposite of hate. It's the inverse. I still have feelings for it. I still think about it about as often as I did when I loved it. I still feel the same passion. It's just to push away instead of pull towards.

It hurt me.

And so I hate it.

Except for cats. Those I just don't like and am really sick of being told how cute your violent sociopathic beast is. I mean seriously. Your cat isn't special. It's just like every other cat, and any animal that regularly attacks you and can't be trained out of it isn't something you have in your house!

Hate is something you should look at the same way you look at love. It can be irrational, powerful, and oh so very difficult to expel. But it's natural. You shouldn't let it destroy you, or control you. Just let it flow out and over you, acknowledge it and let it move on.

The above strategy also works pretty good for hate.