DON'T BE A HATER

Hate is a strong word continued

...The second lesson is this: know your feelings and control them.

Now, even though it was wrong for me to dislike AT for the entire fifteen minutes that I did, at least I knew exactly what I was feeling and why. I admit this is difficult to do. The ability to decipher own's emotions is no easy feat to master, one even I have not come close to doing myself, but in this instance, I was able to. Why? The answer is intention. One has to make a conscious effort constantly to be intentional about what one feels. Again it is hard to acquire this skill; the question is have you acquired it? Or more meaningfully, do you even want to? Dear reader, emotions are a fickle thing. When I watch the K-drama It's okay not to be okay or the American movie Suicide Squad, it's much too easy to unconsciously mimic the female leads their responses to emotions. Being able to let it all out and allow my senses to run wild is incredibly liberating, and believe me, the fact that it always works out well for them in the end does nothing help me remember that in all things self-control must be exercised.

However, there is self-control, and then there is intention. In the instance that I reference, a Youtuber interviewed people on not only how they felt about this man AT but also their reasons for feeling what they did, and let me just say, almost nobody had a leg to stand on. After a few questions, it became painfully obvious that the people themselves couldn't in clear, indisputable sentences say why they disliked him. Most of them simply repeated words that he's usually associated with on- surprise -the Internet; I saw none that could give concrete reasons for themselves. Videos about him refer to him as a misogynist, which means someone who hates women by the way, and you have everyone using the exact same term to validate their dislike of him without being able to define the word itself. Frankly, I think the people interviewed knew what the word implied but were just too afraid to get it wrong on camera, but that's besides the point. What I'm saying is that there two things one can take way from this situation.

The first is quite cliche: Do not move with the crowd. Dear reader, do try not to be swayed by popular opinion or let it taint your own, especially when said opinion is sensitive or negative. Don't be someone who hates another because everyones else does so. We're better than that -let us at least try to be. You see, hate isn't just a strong word, it's a fatal one. One that should not be taken lightly. I would advice you, if possible, to try not to hate at all, mostly because it's way too much stress, but I do not know you or the hand you've been dealt with. For this reason, I will not tell you to not hate, but I will beg that you know why, be sure it's worth it, and no matter what, and I say this solemnly, know that it is better to love.

The second is more or less related to the first. It is that besides being wary of crowd influence, know what you feel to begin with and know why. Are you angry? Furious? Or just straight up offended? Are you hurt or just plain irritated? Know what you truly feel, and (this is the important part) let it go. I don't mean to be an Elsa here but hear me out and remember, grain of salt. Did it ever occur to you that maybe you wouldn't have felt so murderous if you hadn't come across that news in the first place? If you hadn't read that condemning article, seen that compromising photo, or even viewed that implicating status post, you'd go your whole life not knowing or caring about who that person is or what terrible thing they've done. That, my friend, is what I want you to remind yourself of and carry with you; the truth that you really don't have to be upset, especially if you are a complete stranger to the individual in question or if you're well aware that you do not share a close relationship with him or her.

Though I seriously doubt its validity, let me say that if you have not loved someone, then you don't really have the permission hate them when they haven't wronged you on a personal level; for this one take with a sizeable portion of salt, but do consider it. If I am wrong about this then by all means correct me, for I believe it's been quite a minute since I reminded you of my lack of certifiable credentials on the matter, but in case you've forgotten know that saying all this, I mean no harm. I might be something of a know-it-all, but I neither intend to pretend that I am nor do I wish to offend you, dear reader. I simply share with you my experiences and the things I try to learn from them, which may or may not be valuable to someone other than myself. It is with the teensy bit of hope that it might in fact be useful that I'll share with you the greatest lesson of all in this: Just don't judge.

I'll be frank with you. When I considered all the things I heard AT say and I felt distressed by them, I couldn't sleep, so I did the next best thing, I talked about it with someone very discreet: GOD. When I felt angry, appalled and hurt by the things the man said, when it felt personal to me, I considered a solution to the emotions I was feeling: forgiveness. Needless to say that it was unnecessary seeing as how it honestly wasn't personal, but that doesn't mean I didn't get my feelings hurt, so this is for if you ever feel that way too. If you don't know someone, or in fact you've never met them, but somehow they hurt you in actions or words, directly or not, and it feels personal to you, here's a fail-safe-fool-proof-can't-mess-it-up solution: forgive them. That's it. And please know that I never said it would be easy, but it is effective.

As always though, there'd be nothing to forgive if you just try not to judge to start with. So someone is bad, so you don't agree with them, so you just don't like their face, the most important thing is that you don't judge them especially behind a screen, from the safety of your home 3000 kilometers away. I reiterate, we are better than that. It goes without saying that all of this emotional drama would've been avoided if I wasn't scrolling through Youtube, so I guess the Internet is the real monster here.