I’ve observed within my own experience that I hate in others that which I hate in myself.
This is not universally true.
I had never liked catching my reflection in the mirror and yet when I saw others with bodies calcified like mine I tended to view them with compassion.
It can sometimes be easier to be compassionate to those who lay with devils when you’ve been intimate with those devils, yourself.
And yet, invariably, when I look upon another with poison in my heart, I find upon further introspection that I am projecting my inadequacies onto them… and in condemning them I am condemning myself.
The prompt for this post was the 2024 United States election.
I don’t care who you voted for.
We Hate in Others That Which We Hate in Ourselves
What thoughts flicker through your mind, at that, with the added political saltpeter?
They- They- They-
Memories of petty projection are what flood my mind. A hyper-political world where the spotlight was always on my ‘enemies’ and never on myself.
I am good.
They are bad.
The fault for the world I perceive lies with them.
It is Fun to ‘Play’ the Hero
America likes to portray itself as the world’s peacekeeper. As best I can tell, this is a bipartisan projection, though the myth is often placed beneath the pinions of the right wing.
It takes a special kind of arrogance considering this country has long been at war with itself.
It’s normalized to hate half the country; to weaponize institutions, to politically retaliate.
The political pendulum is a feature, not a bug. While any given team may be eager to have their representatives bulldoze their fellow Americans when they have power, they act morally offended when the tables are turned.
People may not be dying in the streets (though that depends on who you ask) but many exist as though in a warzone. Oblivion is always an election cycle away. And just like in war, our enemies are not afforded humanity, and suffering is only selectively acknowledged.
Over the last year, I’ve attended a number of events centered around creating peace in far-off parts of the world. It’s about time such energy was put toward making peace at home.
We Are at War With Ourselves
At an event held by two Palestinian women and two Israelis, I was introduced to a Sufi practice that resembled ‘circling.’ I was invited to hold space with strangers in silence and look into their eyes. One such partner, an aging white woman of a certain stereotype, was wearing a mask.
I laugh at those who still wear masks on the best of days.
At worst, I see them as a symbol of an era where corrupt institutions weaponized a ‘pandemic’ to consolidate power, make the rich richer, and force the public to inject their bodies with foreign substances… and I am not even touching on the harm done to children.
Though I didn’t know why that woman was wearing the colors of my ‘enemy,’ I judged her all the same. The stories fell away when I was confronted with the ocean of sadness and fear in her eyes.
You are not the devil.
Look in me and see-
I am not a fiend.
Addendum: Revolution
To me, this piece is finished.
And, I appreciate that this all sounds trite in comparison to stories that go back centuries, media hysteria, and living traumas.
We live in a world of winners and losers… and, don’t you know that people’s lives will be washed away by these waves?
Don’t you know people drown within the depths of your chosen waters, too?
I’m registered to vote in Texas, though I am a stranger living in the strange land of Western Massachusetts.
Many in my northern ‘found’ family were offended that I was not, did not, vote in the election.
Don’t you know your vote could make a real impact down there?
I always responded with my best Harrison Ford grin, Who do you think I would vote for?
Not voting was my vote, it was not an act of complacency.
My feed, in some ways, is more positive than theirs.
In other ways, it is not.
Red Team was handed a mandate, and many of its fans are out for blood. They possess only as much empathy as they feel was given them.
I do not blame them.
And… it’s not a system or a cycle I wish to be a part of.
We hate in others, the same authoritarian blood that flows in our own veins.
Our history is one of monsters creating more monsters. Those of us who win get to look back in righteousness and white-wash our complicity in the tragedy… at least for a time.
And, maybe I am privileged to be afforded the luxury of – seemingly – washing my hands of the matter. The chains others place upon me certainly bear that inscription.
And, maybe you can’t allow yourself to see the wounds in me, that still bleed.