It’s a treacherous intoxicant. People love recreational outrage but for many people it turns into active, seething hate that colors every interaction they have. It’s the lens through which many view the world and it becomes self-perpetuating. People will have angry and hateful interactions with others, begetting more hate, begetting more hate, begetting more hate.
The fury feels good in a moment. Makes you feel strong. Find some like-minded people angry at the same things and you get to feed off each other’s rage. You’ll not only get more reasons to hate, but you’ll feel justified in the hate. You are in the right. The others are wrong. How dare the others be wrong. You must hate them because they are evil. See how they respond to your hate with more hate, further proving how justified you are in your own hate. It warms your chest, it rushes through your veins like the best alcohol you can imagine and you’re not feeling so helpless. It makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something. It masks the feeling that you are just one, small person faced with an impossibly complicated world, that is often filled with incredible injustice. It keeps you from realizing that you’re a tiny little cog in the same machine that causes both all the suffering and all the joy in the world. It tricks you into thinking that you are both apart from the world, yet powerful enough to impact it.
Every hateful comment you leave adds more hate into the machine. Every act of kindness adds more kindness. But hate is easier. Kindness feels weak. It’s vulnerable. It’s fragile. Even if you’re kind, the hate that others keep adding may reach you and bite you. Most people can handle having their teeth kicked in only for so many times. It’s easier to shut down and hate. But that doesn’t mean that commitment to kindness is impossible. It’s just harder.
It’s a treacherous intoxicant. People love recreational outrage but for many people it turns into active, seething hate that colors every interaction they have. It’s the lens through which many view the world and it becomes self-perpetuating. People will have angry and hateful interactions with others, begetting more hate, begetting more hate, begetting more hate.
The fury feels good in a moment. Makes you feel strong. Find some like-minded people angry at the same things and you get to feed off each other’s rage. You’ll not only get more reasons to hate, but you’ll feel justified in the hate. You are in the right. The others are wrong. How dare the others be wrong. You must hate them because they are evil. See how they respond to your hate with more hate, further proving how justified you are in your own hate. It warms your chest, it rushes through your veins like the best alcohol you can imagine and you’re not feeling so helpless. It makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something. It masks the feeling that you are just one, small person faced with an impossibly complicated world, that is often filled with incredible injustice. It keeps you from realizing that you’re a tiny little cog in the same machine that causes both all the suffering and all the joy in the world. It tricks you into thinking that you are both apart from the world, yet powerful enough to impact it.
Every hateful comment you leave adds more hate into the machine. Every act of kindness adds more kindness. But hate is easier. Kindness feels weak. It’s vulnerable. It’s fragile. Even if you’re kind, the hate that others keep adding may reach you and bite you. Most people can handle having their teeth kicked in only for so many times. It’s easier to shut down and hate. But that doesn’t mean that commitment to kindness is impossible. It’s just harder.
And so it goes, and so it goes.
Don’t forget the self-pity.