I hate today. By all accounts today is turning into a royal shitstorm of complete and utter stupidity. I'm just not in a good mood. I hate days like today...and I'm not sure if I hate them because of the nature of depression they bring, or because I can't really explain why I go through them. There is this weird sense of apathy that I encounter on days like today...the kind where I'm ready to go back to bed even though I've just slept for roughly 8 hours. But on days like this one my sense of cynicism is also heightened. I have this innate ability to look at the world around me through much more critical eyes. This is what I saw this morning in the brief 30 minutes I sat a table in a small diner before, resigning myself to the desk I'm now sitting at.

I saw two over-weight, grubby-clothed, rather self-enlightened males sit at a table across from me and wax-eloquent about their "evangelic understanding of Christianity" and how that starkly contrasted this new "emergent Christianity" that apparently is destroying America. (oh god...it's the post-moderns!!!) They also seemed to have a lot to say about recently deceased televangelists and were rather critical of the nature of these peoples' lives. Oh yea, and they apparently only listen to Christian radio, and my assumption is because it somehow relates to being the only radio Jesus listened to! (Because there totally were radios when Jesus was alive!)

Then there are all the wonderful, self-sacrificing, courteous, polite drivers on the road. Right...I wonder what fucking utopia I was thinking of...definitely not this one. I watched as a slightly older gentleman pulled into a parking space right outside the store front of this particular stretch of road. He was driving a much younger Audi of some kind...I would say the type of Audi his teenage son would have wanted to drive. It was a pristine white, and freshly washed and waxed. But it was the vehicle following him that caught my attention. While the driver of the Audi most certainly appeared to come from a rather well-off lifestyle, the driver of the second automobile apparently did not. He was driving a rusty, brown, full-size conversion van. The gentleman driving was that blue-collar, likes football on Sunday afternoon type...you know...full beard, rough features...a man's man! Who apparently also possesses the world's most vicious glare! Seriously, looks could possibly kill if we all had the facial expression this guy had towards the Audi operator. I don't know what happened, but whatever it was, it apparently warranted the universe's most evil, sinister look of vengeance ever known to man!!! I was thoroughly surprised it was not accompanied by vulgar language, and the middle finger...both which would have coincided nicely with the van-driver's wonderful complexion.

It just struck me at how incredibly freak'n hateful everyone is. People get pissed over some of the craziest shit. "my latte is not hot enough"...thanks to the wonderful world of corporate-have-it-your-way coffee. "they cut me off"...cause we all don't drive fast enough already! "they don't believe in my (G)god"...thanks to modernistic, us-verses-them thought. "they don't accept my sexual orientation (gay or straight)"...thanks to close-mindedness. "those dang kids dress so immodest, them and their piercings, and tattoos, and rock 'n roll and rap music"...I don't know who to blame here...MTV...Teen Magazine...or just ignorant old people who don't remember they all had long hair to fight the system...that is until being drafted to fight in a war, solved the long hair issue. (if you don't know what I'm talking about here with long hair, the likely-hood is that you're too young and didn't pay attention in history class, or whatever the hell they call it in schools now...do they even teach history still???)

But then we have the "legitimate" hate we are seeing in the world...um...hello sectarian violence in Iraq? Or maybe the genocide in Darfur? Any of these ringing a bell? Of course there is always America's own great history with racism and hatred. It is mind-blowing to look on the web and find a church that promotes hatred to the degree of holding signs on street corners that read "AIDS CURES FAGS!" Now gay-agenda don't get too comfortable, you've got your own milita-squad of propaganda-promoting haters. It's just absolutely remarkable to me...until this afternoon when on my lunch break I saw a family walking down the street and I noticed the hat the father was wearing. It was a sports hat. Now I know that talking about sports and equating it to hate will not win me any fans...but it will in the same moment prove my point. (think about it) The fact is that we have been bred to hate. Rivals develop within sports teams to the point of intense abhorrence to the opponents or anyone who supports them. Athletes talk trash about other athletes or coaches...coaches whine about what the administration is or isn't doing...whatever. We watch it all the time. Just the general premise behind athletics...it's all about the conquering and domination of the opponent. Now in the end I think sports are not the evil that I am promoting, but it does lend itself to my point. The fact is that "friendly" competition can fuel into detestation of people. That is true with anything. Not just sports.

But as I was thinking about this whole thing more, I was suddenly finding myself really being confronted with some intense thoughts about our perception of ourselves. My dad once said this to me (at least I think it was him, so he's getting the credit), "The things we hate about others, are the things we hate about ourselves." If that's not a smack to the face, I'm not really sure what is. But let's consider something else real quick. In the Bible there is this account of the Rabbi Jesus being asked what was the greatest commandment a Jew should live by. He said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, but the second to set along side this is love your neighbor as yourself." The first part seems like a very "Jesus" thing to say...even the second part. But here is what is interesting. In the context of when, where and who Jesus was speaking to there was nothing equal to loving God. So for a Rabbi to say something like this was pretty intense. If you look at what Jesus was saying one can deduce that the train of thought is this. Central to life is loving God, and intrinsic to loving God is loving people, and you can't love people if you are not loving yourself.

Hatred isn't actually spawned out of a loathing of others...it is spawned out of a revulsion to ourselves. We don't hate people and others because of what they are. We hate them because of what we're not. A person who absolutely hates homosexuals, could very well be struggling with their own demon of sexuality (think about political figures who obstinately fought to introduce legislation outlawing homosexuality and were suddenly outed) or maybe the fact that they know they are suppose to love everyone and for some reason cannot stomach the truth they don't love everyone. An individual who adamantly seeks to obliterate an entire race or ethnic group is not hating them, but actually in fear. The principles behind Hitler's movement was that the master race could not be tainted. Nazism is simply a movement of fear of no longer being the best. They couldn't stand that thought. The fear is that they would not be able to be superior any longer (and that's assuming they were in the first place). What about religion? Christianity is a great example. How many different dominations consider themselves "Christian"? Coming from Grand Rapids, Michigan...that's like church capital of the freak'n world!!! You could literally drive down the street and see anywhere from 2 to 5 churches. ON THE SAME FREAK'N BLOCK!!!! Aren't Christians all suppose to be following the same God and Jesus??? Here's what is more interesting to me...growing up in the church and watching the complete disapproval of anyone not part of a particular theological thought. If you don't line up, you're for sure not a "true Christian". Do you know why that is? Because the Christians can't seem to get that God is so much bigger than any list of theological theories they can write down...but they all need to pretend that He isn't that big so they have to be absolutely right. No room for discussion. They can't be wrong...so anyone else who doesn't agree with them is likely going to hell.

It's all based in a fear and hatred of self.

We hate others because we hate ourselves. We can't stand what or who we've become but in an attempt to pass blame (cause that's never been done before) and not deal with it we just focus all that hatred on others. We hate the unlovable because we ourselves do unlovely things. We hate the different because we know we are not all the same. We hate the unknown because our answers no longer work. We hate the pretty because we aren't pretty enough. We hate the ugly because we aren't pretty enough. We hate the rich because we don't possess what they do. We hate the poor because they remind us that we possess too much. We hate the athletic because we don't have their abilities. We hate the disabled because we are confronted with what we can do.

Keep going...you'll see everything and everyone you hate is because of something you hate about yourself.

You want to end hatred?

Stop hating yourself.

You are good enough.
You are smart enough.
You are pretty enough.
You are strong enough.
You are artistic enough.
You are rich (or poor) enough.

...just the way you are.

...so is everyone else.

much love.