This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for hate. Hate is great; that’s why it rhymes… okay, maybe that’s not the main reason it rhymes, but it’s definitely not a coincidence. Hate is awesome. What makes me laugh is people who say: “Hate is such a strong word; you should say ‘dislike’.” I would if I disliked it, but my feelings are stronger than that. I don’t dislike peas; I hate them, and this won’t hurt their feelings, so it’s okay for me to write. When peas learn how to read, I’ll erase this statement for fear of upsetting them. What I don’t get is people say hate is too strong a word, yet are fine with love. No one says: “No, love is too strong a word. You should only say ‘like’.” The one exception to this is if you’re in grade three and you tell your mom you love the girl in your class and she tells you you’re too young to know what love is, which is strange because I could say I love you to her and it was real. In reality, a grade three kid will likely know how to love better than most adults because they’re not blinded by hormones and thinking about how they can use this person they “love” to benefit themselves. They simply love… and hate. Some parents think hate is like a swear word, which is funny because these people “hate” the word hate. But hate isn’t the ‘h’ word, ‘h’ ‘e’ double hockey sticks is. Personally, I hate the h-word, which works out because hate and hell often go together. That being said, however, hate isn’t the evil we often think it is. Hate is a gift; we should embrace it. Hate is valuable; it’s the fuel of change: “I hate using leaves and twigs to wipe myself when I go to the bathroom… I know; I’ll create toilet paper. “I hate these glass ketchup bottles where you have to jam a knife in them to get the ketchup to come out… I know I’ll make a squeezable bottle with the top being the bottom; awesome.” “I hate waiting 6 hours in the ER… I know; let’s make people wait 8 hours, so they wish it was only 6 hours.” At least I’m guessing this is what’s making our hospital waits longer and longer. The truth is hate is part of being human. Why did God create satan? So we’d have something to hate. Hate fuels passion and can unite people together to fight a common goal. Hatred of disease has definitely led to a lot of 5km walks. Hate also fuels humor. Christopher Titus, one of my favourite stand up comedians, has a bunch of performances on CD and DVD. His funniest and most touching material came from figuring out what to do with his hate of his ex-wife and messed up childhood. Some things need to be hated like hypocrisy, incompetence, injustice, pride, and cruelty because these are bad things. Hate is a good thing… when applied properly. It’s like a bomb. Bombs are great for mining and clearing debris, but when they’re used to hurt people they’re terrible. Hate’s the same. We need to be careful how we use it. Hate should never be used to fuel racism or sexism or our cars. Ironically, we should hate racism and sexism and fuel prices.
The ultimate reason why hate is valuable I learned from a book I recently listened to (listened because who has time to read). This book mentions that certain mental health issues and suicide is much higher in developed countries like Canada (not the time you want to be in the top 10), and a major reason for this is because we don’t have something to hate. Since most Canadians couldn’t care less about satan/religion and there’s nothing we as a society hate enough to really unite us, we don’t have a worthy target to hate outside of ourselves, so we end up hating ourselves or life in general. What’s worse is hating ourselves leads to us being crippled by guilt, sabotaging relationships, and sulking, which further adds to us wanting to hate ourselves thereby creating a vicious circle. Hate isn’t meant to hurt, but to help us want to grow. Hate isn’t meant to divide; it’s meant to unite and make this a better world.
Things I hate:
- Finding a random ¼ inch hair on my neck that I’ve somehow not seen until that moment.
- Finding a random ¼ inch hair growing out of a mole. That’s just too sexy for people.
- Diving boards: There’s no way to bounce on them and not feel fat.
- Corduroy pants: Being a former fat kid it’s hard not to hate corduroy with the burning and constant high pitch rubbing noise that sounds like “You’re fat. You’re fat. You’re fat…”
- People who say “Be yourself.” What does that mean? I can be nice or mean, and I’m still me.
- Prison: Why are we putting people in prison when I could use someone to cut my lawn?
- Ringing a doorbell and forgetting to listen closely because I don’t know if I rang it and missed it or the doorbell is broken and then I’m left standing stupidly at the door.
This Thanksgiving may you realize the joys of hate and using it appropriately.
Rev Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, Learning to love dumb people