A Love Letter, to: Hate

My relationship with Hate is long and strenuous. I will dissect our relationship the same way Hate made me dissect all of mine. So if you will, this is a letter of hate, to Hate. 

Since my youth, Hate has been one of my most loyal companions, and at times, my only. Hate filled me with a revolting satisfaction; negative words and thoughts were peculiarly compelling when coupled with the comfort of desolate suffering. Despite my better judgment, I often made the conscious decision to hate unnecessarily, rendering the powerful emotion into a meaningless and frequent verb. Hating felt therapeutic, I replayed the same stories of betrayal and anguish, hoping I would achieve another more satisfactory conclusion to the previous. Every new angle of victimization fed my ego, constructing a false and fragile illusion of superiority. On my faulty tower, I felt justified to look down on those who dared to knock me down, yet my tower resembled a game of Jenga rather than a compact fortress. Whenever I was pulled in the right places I would fall instantaneously. Even a slight nudge resulted in instant instability and insecurity. 
You can not construct a stable foundation on Hate. 

Obtaining new hateful conclusions to the same scenarios was my idea of ‘reconstructing and strengthening’ the tower I never felt secure on. The blocks never changed and the foundation remained – fragile. Nevertheless, my ego insisted on constructing the tower. Building, building, building illusory superiority with shallow self-appraisal. It was an addiction that drove me into deep self-isolation. Dangerously, the superiority complex is unconditionally paired with an insatiable thirst for external validation. Those who brag about their achievements and feel inclined to justify themselves as superior, feel deeply inferior; yet, they are too scared to admit to self-loathing, so they often live by another person’s perspective of a ‘successful life’. My pursuit of superiority exposed my problem, all the negativity I was channeling brought me back to myself, the root of my insecurity. Hate is a mirror. All I hated was a part of me. We are everything and everyone around us.

Hate, we became close as society claimed the ultimate goal in life was to win external love. Constructing the illusion that only those who deserve love, will get it. But what is the criteria to be deserving? Why are we not born deserving? I consumed advice, products, everything that capitalized off my fear of being ‘undeserving’. They claimed to sell me the potential to become deserving, all I had to do was consume and change, entirely, constantly. I never came closer to love and then everything around me started to revolve around you, Hate. To cope with my failure, I became obsessed with degrading comments towards others that concluded with the same delusion, that they were worse, thus I had to be better. But my self-acclaimed victories were never enough to stop me from engaging in one-sided competition with everyone I confronted. On my unstable tower, engulfed by you, I wondered why love never found me. I hated myself, but love comes from within. I needed you to realize that.

I hate you Hate. You inflicted unnecessary suffering and provoked unnecessary conflict. But you have taught me more about myself and love than anyone. Because of that, I love you.