Why do people hate? It’s a simple question really.
I remember asking myself this many many times over myself in the last 20 years.
It’s always been a confusing one to me. People have hated me my entire life and I’ve done nothing to them to incite the hatred they give me. I could never understand it.
I was like a little boy pulling on his mum’s flowery dress as she cooks dinner, “Mom? Why do people hate?”
Oh I mean for sure I understand some people that hate me. Despite my attempts to make amends I will always be the villain in someone’s story. Their hate is justified, I am no saint.
But what about those that just hate you for existing? I’ve encountered those before, I’m sure you have too, but have never truly understood the reasons as to why.
And yet it is with my recent brush with spirituality I have a more wholesome answer, a more conclusive and rounded idea as to why people hate others for seemingly just existing.
We are all a mirror to each other. We don’t like other people for what they are, we like people for the parts in them that we see in ourselves. I have several friends all with different characteristics; each friend subtly reflecting back something of myself that I see in them.
It’s the same with everyone. If you analyse your friendships or the family members that you like; if you truly think about it then you will see yourself in the parts of them that you like.
We are mirrors, to everyone. It is the way the mind perceives reality.
It is the same with hate. A person may dislike another person because they see something in them that they don’t like about themselves. As they have spent years hiding this part of themselves from the world — there is this other person standing there in their grandeur displaying it for the world to see.
They are the mirror to their soul and they do not like it whatsoever.
Many people like me. I’ve been told by one of my old psychologist friends that she’d challenge anyone who says that they genuinely didn’t like me as a person. At the time I thought she was being over the top but I see why she was saying this.
There is genuine innocence to me that is very childlike. I remember people of a time when it was safe to just be themselves. A time when bills and adult stuff were not a thing and it was just hills and fields and playing. I bring out the child in people.
This is also particularly true for people who have wounded their child. This is where my trauma is too; but I have healed gracefully from it, and I remind people that sometimes your child is okay to step into.
I’ve had people try to destroy me to the core in the past. Absolutely tear me down from the very core of my existence. But it was not because I was being evil to them, it was simply because whatever I was doing at the time reminded them of what they do not like about themselves.
People are different in many ways. There are many ways I could annoy others I’m sure!
And yet let’s not also forget about connection.
One thing we have fast ran towards over the last thirty years is a life of solitude and individuality, and yet we have forgotten the very things that have made us human in the long run — community.
A lot of people we see out there hate because they simply do not feel connected to anyone or anything. I took drugs and alcohol for most of my late teens and early twenties because I didn’t think anyone understood me. I didn’t have anyone to connect with me.
I was a rebel without a cause, fuck everything and everyone.
It wasn’t until a nice young lady took the time to sit down with me and ask my hopes, dreams, and fears that we eventually got to the meat of the matter that I finally relaxed. I found somewhere I could call my place, and that I could call a home.
Most angry people are angry because no-one finds a connection with them anymore. We are all arguing over one thing or another whereas we are more likely to agree on more things than we disagree on. I tend to focus on what I agree with first when I’m trying to find a connection with someone.
No-one feels listened to.
Hopefully that will change in the future.
