hate thing

some writing about hatred, and the fact that liking each other is overrated. why is it that we must either hug each other or kill each other? why can we not simply dislike one another, while respecting our individual rights as human beings? i think it's very normal to hate someone, to want to surpass everything they do, to never want to interact with them--and yet when a gun is pulled at their face, to take out your own weapon and brandish it at the attacker

all human beings are given the right to live. all human beings are given the right to love. all human beings are given the right to hate. to take any of that away is to deny our humanity. we should NOT all get along; instead, we must remind ourselves that the concept of respect and the concept of liking one another is unlinked. you should respect all human beings, let them achieve their own goals; you may oppose them, like anyone else, but to take away their rights is to make you a monster as you try to turn them into an animal. why must hate be combined with crimes? can we not simply hate and be done with it? "I hope I never see you again. I hope you never interact with me." why must the third statement immediately following be one punctuated by a baseball bat? can't we civilly shake hands, wipe them off on our coats, and then walk away?

if you extend peace towards even your greatest enemies, then surely, in a just world, they will do the same to you. my dream is a world where you can say "I hate you" to someone at a big banquet, and then keep eating your own shares of the feast, without fists colliding with faces. my greatest desire is for the Earth to be filled with people who love and people who hate, joining hands instead of clashing swords.

why SHOULD i like you? why can't i just hate you, and that's it? i wish you the best with your career, i hope you're able to accomplish all you want in your life, and i hope that you have a wonderful day. simultaneously, i fucking despise looking at your face, and sincerely hope i never have to do so again. why can't that just be the norm? centuries in the past, communities full of those who hated each other could coexist peacefully. in high schools, there are kids who never want to interact, where putting them in a group project means that the tension in the room is so palpable it feels like the red brick walls will crumble to bits.
yet, in the adult world, now the tension's pressure is no longer a metaphor; now, the cherry-colored bricks are stained a deeper red by a splash of blood carried by a suddenly swung two-by-four. as kids, we learn to respect the people we can't get along with; as adults, we replace the word "respect" with "kill".

i WANT a world of conflict, on a personal level. i want to go about my week and watch a YouTube video with 50,000 views telling me that everything i've ever written is terrible shit. i want to go to a cafe and, amidst the sweet cinnamon smell of my morning coffee, be bothered by the shouting of an angry nerd playing Magic: The Gathering at another table. i want to talk to a Republican, and have our debates be about economics, about spending, about how much control the government should have--and not about if i deserve to be burned at the stake because the way i identify wasn't written about in the Bible.

in an ideal world, our taxes go to helping everyone. we won't stand on top of a pile of dead kids, making sure to crunch the skull of the gay one at the very top with an iron-toed boot, cheering that our tax dollars aren't "being wasted". if i could say that i hate you so much, while handing you the twenty dollars you need to make sure you can eat for the day because your business has been going poorly, without an expectation that you would like me back or need to give me anything in return, then i think this world would be a wonderful place. why should we have a society where everyone is smiling all the time? life is one of the worst experiences you can inflict upon someone, but it's also one of the absolute best, too--you should smile, you should cry, you should get angry, and you should flip the bird off to the people you don't like, expecting them to do the same to you, and then you both move on with your days. trying to paint over our distaste with plastic grins, manufactured into statements that are so offhanded they might as well be kicks in the groin, pretending we love the people we plot each night about murdering--why is *this* the kind of world that we've decided we're okay with?

going cold turkey on any addiction doesn't work; you either fall back even deeper than you did before, or you die. the human race is extremely addicted to hatred, and the only solution is to temper the molten steel, rather than toss it in the garbage and hope nobody goes dumpster-diving at 3 AM.