Monday, June 13, 2016

Love & Hate

I am flawed beyond comprehension. A lucky flesh covered skeleton, passing my short time on a beautiful planet I can only barely appreciate. Prone to addiction, petty jealousy, gluttony, insecurity, cruelty, and self-loathing. But still I love. I love the creatures to whom this earth belongs - from the pod of dolphins wheeling magnificently before a Pacific sunset, to the mealybug making its way across my concrete balcony garden. And despite all of the well though-out and seamlessly logical reasons I have for disliking my fellow man, there’s nothing I love more than the human race. The only thing I crave as much as being alone is being with others. 

And because I am only human, I hate. And my true and lasting hate is mostly reserved for those who hate. Not the ones who have been dealt a bad hand in life and act out their rage on an indifferent world, but those who are dedicated to the destruction of that which they do not understand - or simply do not like - and use religion or ideology to cover their tracks. The person who picks up a gun and does the deed himself is the easiest to hate, and is indeed loathsome. But make no mistake, that person was not born that way - that person was made. Made by those who have the power and position to spread a poisonous message daily and methodically - all the while picking up a fat check, maintaining a facade of respectability…and using religion or ideology to cover their tracks. And when some unstable little fuck who has guzzled their Kool-Aid to the last drop does the dirty work for them, the idealogues feign shock and blame The Other, and the religious nuts offer aggressively misinterpreted quotes from their chosen book of faith to justify the act. And blame the other.


I am flawed beyond comprehension. And I am not qualified to judge. But it seems to me that the ones who pull the trigger are the symptom. The ones who convince them to do so are the disease.