Dealing with the Hate that is Everywhere

 

"Hate" is today everywhere. The word there in scare quotes because I am referring to the real thing -- not the supposed sister to today's "racism," "homophobia" and "misogyny" - all of which have their own faked and exaggerated version -- one that is paraded everywhere -- along with, I suppose (never having actually personally seen such), the real things.

No, hate -- true hate -- is real and spreading like a cancer. And it is moving from something felt and openly expressed, to something that is acted upon. -Sometimes by design, sometimes because of uncontrolled and unrestrained anger and rage.

Yes, hate is growing and spreading and leaving its mark -- more and more often a bloodstained one and/or in the form of a chalk outline on the floor -- that of its victim.

We see it everywhere. In part because the media loves to show it, and with phone cameras always on the ready even small occurrences of violent hate, in out of the way places, are now eye bait for the masses.

Crazed people jumping on the counter of a fast food restaurant screaming and threatening. That seems today to be happening everywhere within one demographic. Cars running over "protestors" among another.

Dare a person wear a red Trump hat today? Or put a Trump sign on their lawn?

Dare a person just sit with a few friends in a restaurant without being ready to either go along with, or riskily refuse, to make some idiotic racial/political chant on some angry stranger's threatening demand?

(Have you decided what you'd do if you found yourself in that situation?)

But the political and cause-driven hate is not the only type today being seen. There is also, and increasingly, the outright, old-fashioned, impassioned, type. Even murder.

Yes murder. And not just in the mean urban streets long known for such things, but even in quiet towns and smaller cities such as surround my own still-for-the-moment tranquil semi-rural community.

I man in a town neighboring my own recently murdered another local man who had an affair with his wife. And then he forced his wife to decapitate (yes, you read that right) and bury the murdered man's body.

This morning I read about another murder in yet another neighboring town -- this committed by teen who killed his own father with a hammer and a knife.

These were "headlines" of a sort. But not the sort I often look at. And certainly not the sort I'd have, even a short time ago, expected to read in a local paper.

The various types of violence I mention above are not to my mind unrelated. They each in their own way reflect the same 'demons' having been loosed into the world. -One that here (and elsewhere) had been kept in check by the now "outmoded" idea of religion and basic morality. And in the place of such faith-based self-restraint has come the, yes!, demons of the unrestrained human soul.

I see all the above occuring and I choose to act for self preservation, and as and if needed, in self-protection.

Foremost of my own soul. I will not hate. I will not allow myself to see hate and unrestrained anger as normal. It is, and will remain, of another world inhabited by a different psyche. "Out there," not "in here."

TV and movies. Social media posts. If encouraging hate is their theme I want no part of them. No, none. Not to fill my mind or my heart.

But the second act of self defence is the building up of a perimeter. The "wall" that surrounds my life separating it from what is "out there."

And, with that, the development of a practiced and ready system of defence -- in this case not against an idea, but as needed against quite real and physical forces. To be used against any violent hater that wishes to force their way into the tranquil world that I inhabit with my friends and loved ones.

One does what one must. Such is a fundamental of adulthood.

Yes, It is as simple as that. And the first step toward doing so is being willing to see and recognise what is in fact, no matter how much we may personally dislike it, happening. To avoid childlike denial.

Yes, the threat of growing hate and violence is real. And that sad fact must be faced up to, and as required, dealt with.


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