no time for hate

turning in my hater card for something more kind and loving

I used to be a world class hater. If I found something - a food, a band, a sports team - that I disliked, I would reach deep down into my soul and pull out all the dark matter I could grab, then wrap myself up in it until the hatred became my entire personality. I threw myself into the hatred. I made up chants about the Red Sox and jokes about the Red Hot Chili Peppers. If I hated something, everyone knew about it.

At some point, my hatred of certain things outweighed my enjoyment of the things I loved. I concentrated so much on abhorring certain aspects of pop culture life that I forgot passion goes both ways; I simply stopped the practice of loving things completely and fully in lieu of hating.

I could easily pinpoint how I became a hater instead of a lover. I turned all that emotion I had reserved for loving things into a force for the opposite. I had so much stuff going on in my life, none of it good. All my hope had turned to despair, all my good vibes were taken over by anger and fear. It was only natural that I turned towards the cult of hate; I had to put all that anger somewhere.

Hatred consumed me. I was angry all the time so this fit my lifestyle and I embraced it. I held my sports rivalries close, going so far as to make a Red Sox voodoo doll. I stopped listening to an album that had one bad song on it instead of just skipping the song. I let everyone know about my selected hate. What’s the point of being a hater if you don’t shout it to the world? I hated countries and planets and books and street names. I hated actors and soft drinks. I hated summer and winter.

When social media came around it was like handing me a powerful megaphone. Finally, I could spread news of my hate throughout the world. Everyone would know exactly what I think of Modern Family. They would find out just how I felt about fancy martinis that aren’t really martinis. The Toronto Maple Leafs, Meat Loaf (the guy not the food), DJ Madison on Lithium all fell under my wrath. I let loose with a litany of true loathing. And it felt great. I was throwing my hate into the world and people were responding in kind. I was a hatred cyclone, picking up anything in my way and entrapping it in my vortex.

It felt great until it didn’t. It was a gradual decline in hatred. I didn’t wake up one day and say, I’m done being a hater. My life had taken a hard turn; first the pandemic, then the breakup of my marriage, and then two years of being in and out of the hospital. I started looking for more things to like and love and cherish. There had become this great void in my life and I was looking to fill it, but found the passionate hate that usually filled this black hole was not enough. It all just left me feeling empty and bereft. The effort it took to carry all that hate while carrying the weight of my life was exhausting. I needed something else. I needed positivity. And slowly, my consciousness was responding to that need. I sought out things that made me feel good, and ignored things that made me feel bad. I threw myself into finding joy. But that wasn’t the only thing I was doing, because actively seeking joy caused me to diminish my hate.

I started rooting for the New York Mets despite my previous hatred of them. Why? Because when they win, it makes my father happy. And that brings me joy. I decided I no longer hated any sports team I had a perceived rivalry with. I mean, I’ll always have a little bit of hatred for the Braves, but I more or less stopped caring about them. I listened to the entirety of Meat Loaf’s Bat out of Hell even though I despise “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” because the rest of the album is so good. Why was I letting my hatred seep into other songs? It’s less taxing on me emotionally to just skip the song and hear the rest than go on a tirade about how “Paradise” sucks and work myself up about it. I no longer get agitated about the people driving Ford F150s with Trump flags on the back. Not my problem. Not my issue. I’m not going to spend what could be a pleasant drive shooting hate like laser beams at a guy I’m never going to see again.

Sure, I still harbor a little hate for some of these things but the important part is how i don’t act on that hate now. I don’t have it in me anymore to write 500 word rants about people or places or things I hate. I let that emotion stay down and buried. It doesn’t fester because I’m not feeding it anything. It just sits there, ignored, and with any luck, I’ll forget about all the hate my body previously held in its grip. I don’t have time in my life for a heated argument about the merits of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’d rather talk about what I love than what I loathe. I don’t want to have conversations about subjects that make my fists involuntarily clench. I want to embrace all that is good, all that I love and hold dear, all that I find beautiful.

The world is very ugly right now. There’s a lot going on that makes me angry, and it’s an anger that is bitter yet justified. It is not a frivolous anger or hatred like what you feel for a sports team or band or a bad movie. I hate Forrest Gump with all my heart but I’m just not going to have lengthy talks about it anymore because it conjures up feelings I’d rather not expose right now. I need goodness. I need happiness. I need to love instead of hate because I just don’t have it in me to be pointedly mean about pop culture anymore.

It was about April of 2023 when I started doing a weekly column here on the newsletter called Finding Joy. I would go over all the things in the previous week that made me happy or brought me some joy, small or large. Looking at flowers, seeing a rainbow, buying a new record, visiting my sister. All these things are based in love, and bring my happiness. I found that writing about them every week really taught me how to embrace the joyful things in life no matter how small, and that went a long way toward letting the concept of being a hater go.

I think I’ll continue on with the weekly joy column now that I’m back here. It’s a nice exercise that did me a world of good. And lord knows we need to find the good in the world right now. Seek out joy. Hatred has its place, but not in the everyday, not in a way where it becomes more common in your life than love.