Hate?

I had a rant a week or two about hate, but wanted to continue as it has been on my mind a lot lately as I see it bubbling up. Lot of hate going on out there. Hate against cops. Ukranians hating, uh, other Ukranians. The US Government definitely hating on the Russians. Black against whites, legal citizens against those illegals, ultra right against them gay peoples having that creepy gay sex (heaven forbid what goes on in the bedrooms of most of them ultrarights, shiver). Vaccinated against unvaccinated. Rap lovers vs Country lovers. Fat against skinny. Vegans against meat lovers. Star Wars against Star Trek. People who like Taylor Swift against all those haters and bakers out there. Everyone pretty much hates someone else and vice versa. Lots of people hating. Some vitriolic and some passive aggressive like “girl, that is such a LOVELY dress” (oh god, get a size that fits girl). I personally hate people that hate other people. Damn haters. Drinkin the hatorade. So the question I ask is WHY? Who is there so much hatred out there? I firmly believe that hate is an acquired trait. People aren’t born and right around 3 years old when they start making some coherent decisions goes “you know what, I hate that kid, he talks funny and is brown”. Sure, let’s get that whole genetic disposition out of the way. I conceded there are sociopaths that have no such thing as a bucket full of empathy, but that is not hatred, that’s just plain crazy. Most people are not crazy. You can usually spot them crazy folks on AMerica’s Most Wanted or drooling in a corner scratching their forehead till it bleeds, whispering over and over “Nobody puts baby in a corner”.

I don’t know, hatred takes a LOT of effort to keep up. Lots of energy wasted in protest marches and making cool signs or blog posts. Oh, here some hate, go read some comments sections on ANY topic. The trolls are out there hating, even such simple things as cat videos “Your cat is a whore! I hope it gets run over by a UPS van”. Pick anything random, but pick some controversial article on Huffington Post or Politico and let the games begin. Fun for the whole family. I digress. Back to the whole energy hatred thing. Seriously, why bother? I always think of these flyover state super conservatives trashtalking them raghead muslims or those queers (or any combo thereof) and wonder if any of them have ever actually met a muslim or gay person. Even if they have, what did that particular individual do to that person to make them hate their ‘kind’. It’s not like a bunch of radical gay muslims are setting up shop in east of nowhere Texas going you know what “let’s have our daily prayer sessions in sequins and tiaras and totally piss off the rednecks.” Turn that around and know that all rednecks aren’t prejudicial 2nd amendment gun rights fanatics. And even if they were, so be it, it is there ’cause’. I suppose that is the answer right there. People need a cause, a sense to belong. We’re social creatures and need a sense of companionship and society. We want to be wanted! That there is the rub. If your group is totally digging on themselves, happy and content and some out of town dude shows up that isn’t part of your clan, then suspicion creeps in and what if they don’t have the same thoughts and customs as your content group of peeps? DO you try to assimilate that person? What if that person wants ice cream when you group banned it a year ago due to some weird dairy intolerance? So he has it shipped in and starts eating it in the middle of the park, smiling and whistling mumbling “ICE CREAM IS DELICIOUS”. A few bystanders look at him in jealousy, because they do not have dairy issues and can perfectly well eat ice cream, but do not, because they’ll be beaten by their parents. The parents who are lactose intolerant start to go in freak out mode because of all the pain and suffering caused by ice cream in the past and end up gunning down the new citizen out of a blind fit of rage while the kids look on cheering because they can scurry away the ice cream and eat it behind the dumpster. And just like that, some dies, society goes back to it’s pre new guy period. HOWEVER, the brother comes to visit unannounced the next day and finds out his ice cream loving brother was gunned down in broad daylight on a park bench by a soccer mom with deep seated hatred for milk lovers. This brother gets in her grill and says “I’m coming back for sweet revenge missy” and off he goes to get his Milk Loving Clan from the next state and they come back and with ten trucks full of string cheese and force feed it to everyone in town and then torching all the soy/almond milk factories. Brother calls a press conference and the news trucks show up for a 24 hour news cycle showing the riots, which in turn get all the other milk/non milk factions riled up and hating on each other. Hell the gluten free groups feel left out and fear they may be next and mobilize and decide to preemptively wipe out all the paleo diet factions. This all happens in a week, slowly to disappear off the news channels when some other “if it bleeds it leads” event occurs, usually involving someone hating someone else, more likely the 1%’rs gaining even more money from the middle class sheeple. No one can remember patient zero who was simply having an ice cream cone in a park. He’d have been happy to go soy if asked.

Is the world getting too small? Are there just too many people out there? Or as a society are we just not rational enough to work it out with the rest of our two legged brethren out there? I think in the end, people are just too complacent. It is EASY to hate, even when it takes a lot of energy to do so. If you just stopped for a second and thought about what makes you hate something or someone, I bet you that there is more than likely a very stupid reason for doing so. The line has already been crossed already on the macro level with regards to hatred being wiped out. Wars are going to be fought and a LOT of people are going to die due to the clash of kings, but on a micro level, on the day to day experience everyone has, hatred can be overcome. A fat person can hold hands with a skinny person and head to the gym together. A black person and a white person can chat about music genres and their ‘tribes’ histories. Just sit and listen.

Well if you can get through all that hatred nonsense I am changing course a bit and wanting to discuss parenting. My kids are turning, have turned will be turning into teenagers and I remember when I was about 15 that I thought my parents were morons. Not sure why. Perhaps the age, who knows, I look a back and realized I was the moron. I had no idea what was going on in my parents’ lives. They were troubled souls and I never knew it until much much later. Now I think what my kids think of me. I KNOW I’m a moron so that’s already a given. The question is I wonder if they think I’m a good father, friend, whatever. I have no idea really. I just try to help, try to guide and hope for the best, balance that “do this or else” vs “gotta make your own decisions” dichotomy that you just never know which side to be on. It’s a fascinating thing to watch your kids go from being quite dependent on you to ‘get the hell out of here dad’ independence. I just hope that I have trained them in the decision making processes and that they have the brainpower to not do as much stupid shit as I did. Parenting is a scary ass thing man. I don’t want to be that parent with a CNN microphone in my face saying “I don’t know what happened, he was such a good kid”. Ah well, back to being a parent. Peace out.