Now there are quite a few threads where some serious and major crises are being discussed. Sometimes the anonymity of the internet allows the abused child or the distraught housewife finds comfort in a virtualized community, but reviewing most of the other threads begs the question: Do you hate (Aunties/In laws/Marriage/Men/Dark Skin/Take your Pick) so much that the entire section is full of your downright retarded thoughts? Hatred has never brought anything fruitful to the table because your rants and wasted energy, will NOT change your circumstances.
Case in point: Back in the consulting days, I ended up on some G-d awful assignment to location in the Rust Belt. In this town, the largest manufacturer was secondary parts supplier to the Big3 automaker. The owner was thinking about selling out to their larger rival. Obviously this town was shook up by the news as the manufacturer was the largest employer. While spending a week, I attempted to be out and about in the town, eat at the diners, buy the local produce and trinkets, to really see how the people would be impacted. It was pretty obvious that I was expecting an icy reception. However in reality, I was shocked to find them to be very cordial and welcoming. Unfortunately this heavily white town also had a racist streak that I discovered as time went by. Apparently they absolutely hated blacks and hispanics…Muslims? Let’s not even go there. They saw me as sufficiently “ethnic” in the Italian fold. So one night, I was at the local diner finishing up a meal talking with a few of the plant workers, who turned it towards how America was being taken over by outsiders, how it was a white, Christian country etc…soon these rants grew in size as more and more people started joining in. Here, I was, sitting in the middle of about 25 Americans, all older (some even my parents age) spewing hatred against anyone who was not White, Christian. I don’t claim to be a moral defender of minorities against racism nor did feel compelled to stop them in the cheesy “The More you Know” NBC type of messages, but my thoughts were elsewhere: While these people were hating on the world for their misery, their literal jobs and livelihoods were at stake if this manufacturing facility was to be sold. Perhaps they felt helpless or wanted the sympathies from each other, but the fact remained that their town would suffer an economic collapse if the largest employer were to move away. They would be left holding the bag, yet NOT ONE person addressed the core issue: How could we revamp the town and save jobs? Instead it was all about how “others” were doing this to them. The owner (white, christian himself) was getting older and was considering the offer as his employees frittered the time away, talking about how bad blacks are.
To me, this sounded idiotic but also counterproductive. Instead of tapping the positive energies towards figuring out a plan IF their jobs were lost, they were talking about issues and spewing hatred that would not change their reality. Incidentally, our report recommended cost savings but did not endorse selling out to the larger rival..some months later the owner sold out anyway and 800 jobs were lost. I thought about those people and how they were going to cope, with the recognition that many would end up on the same welfare rolls that they criticized “the blacks” had been abusing.
Anyway, returning to the topic at hand, hatred of others will not bring you anything tangible, it’ll waste your time and energy, that should be deployed to change your reality. Whining or complaining online means jack, because you’re still miserable in your real life.
Therefore hatred is illogical.
Me? I’m not going to sweat the small stuff.
