Hatred Crystallization

Hate is a funny thing. It can manifest itself in many ways, in many forms, and in almost any level of intensity. I don't claim to be an expert, but I have learned a couple of things over my 29 years about the phenomenon, and those few things culminated in a mini "aha!" moment today. OK, it wasn't even really an "aha!" moment, really more of a "huh that's interesting" sort of thing, but here it goes anyway. First of all, hatred is almost always bad. Like, not just in that it's bad for the person or thing being hated, but it's almost always not even useful for the person doing the hating. It clouds your judgement, it makes you emotional, just nothing good ever comes of it. And second of all, hating shit is hard work. It's just flat tiring to hate someone or something for any extended period of time; it's very...draining.

So as I was thinking about these things today I realized that while they are almost always true, like most rules they have their exceptions. There have been times in my life that feeling the emotion of hate has come easily, dare I say almost naturally. It just felt like the right thing to, you know, feel. And there have also been times that pure visceral hate has not been a negative whatsoever, and probably even been a positive influence on the act of going about my business. If you take a minute to think back on your own life experience about a few times you've thought you hated someone or something you'll probably be able to find your own similar exceptions to my above truisms of "hate is hard" and "hate doesn't help."

So how does it come to pass that you can easily hate someone or something and actually get some benefit out of it? I believe that in order for either of those things to happen you have to go through what I've dubbed "hatred crystallization". The process is not easily defined, and I need to give it another good think if I want to get any further along than this vague summary, but basically this is the point of no return for hatred. To borrow a cheesy religious phrase, this is the point at which you simply let go and let God. Up until the hatred crystallizes your body and mind has been fighting it (unless you're a psychopath, generally hateful person, or Commerce Regular, I suppose, but I'm thinking about normal high functioning happy people here with first world problems), trying not to give in, realizing the two above truths, that hatred is hard and not helpful. But if the hatred builds and builds past a certain point, in a sense the scales can tip forever. You give up trying to stop hating whatever it is that has wronged you so vigorously and just let it all...be. Hatred crystallization has occurred; you're now in a positive feedback loop, not a negative one, and you're never going to un-hate this thing. An example for me is the New England Patriots. I will hate them forever, no matter what ill befalls them, no matter how many crushing defeats they suffer, even if Tom Brady right arm is chopped off in a freak lawn mower accident. Through all that, through everything that could possibly happen, through locusts and frogs besieging Foxboro still my hate will flow strongly. It has crystallized. I can't stop it, nor do I want to. It just feels so good and comes so naturally, as if things were simply meant to be this way. And I can take comfort in the fact that no matter what happens, they always will be. That sums it all up in a nutshell; once you embrace your hatred instead of trying to swallow it, it has crystallized. From there, things seem to get easier.