Musings of Maya: Hate
Hate is such a strong emotion that it amazes me at times. It is so overpowering that nothing else matters when faced with it. People hate with all their hearts more than they love. As a kid, we are taught to promote love and pursue everything about it, but in the process of growing up, all we experience is hate and anger and hurt. It is said that a child’s mind is like clay and is molded by its surroundings as it grows up, so I wonder how exactly does a child learn to love when all around it experiences just the opposite with no trace of the elixir it’s searching for.
All around the world, hate is what everyone gives out. Governments and politicians base their whole careers on it. Preachers and priests who are supposed to bring the love and light of God to the darkest corners of the world thrive and mooch off of innocent people using their hatred and distrust for their gain. Hate corrupts even the brightest of minds and the softest of hearts. It makes one wonder that what is it about hate that it affects all and there exists not even a single human who claims to be untouched by it and is a hate virgin. Someone who has never hated anything or anyone for the entirety of their lives. Now, as a result of this statement the “religious ones” will surely retort with how their objects of worship were such a being who never hated anyone or anything. And with this reply they bring forth another question, “if your god is such a being who never hated anything or anyone, then why do you?” wasn’t it your claim that you love your god and always follow in their footsteps? If your religion is based on an emotion such as love, which is even purer than the normal kind of love, because this love is with the divine then how does your heart allow you to spread hatred in its name? does your conscience not waver or condemn you for such an act? Observing the way things go about in the world it becomes certain that even after reading this write-up people would only think that the author is correct in questioning such people for they will simply read it with a biased mind and relate everything negative to the people who belong to a religion different from them. This divide of “us” and “them” needs to be done away with. For when one stands facing justice, there is no “us” or “them” it’s all a matter of positive or negative, good or bad, love or hate.
Coming to governments and politicians, one can easily be overwhelmed by the amount of hate these people keep in their hearts and spew out as well. How exactly does a human manage to gather and hold this large amount of hatred for its fellow beings nonetheless? They are always hating one thing or the other if not then they take up hating one person or the other. When they speak, if you have the aptitude for it and listen closely all you will hear is certainly venom and hate. It’s either an opponent or some other government or even at times a certain group of their fellow citizens. Like the religious ones they also use the divide of us and them for their selfish gains. The country, India for example, is one of the largest and oldest democracies, yet it is often said that if you take away the caste system a huge number of Indian population will be clueless as to whom to vote for. What is it that people take great interest in creating divisions even when they know that it brings about conflict? Does that mean that people crave conflict? Maybe subconsciously or maybe knowingly, no one has answers, do they? And so, the original question comes back, why do people lean towards hate when there is so much to love and be loved for? Maybe it’s one of those eternal unanswerable questions and hence the world will never know. But it is said that to every question asked there exists an answer, very much like a soulmate. Until that answer is found one can only wonder for that is the way to it.