Are You Letting Hate Control You?

When I received this pitch, I was excited to schedule the interview. But then I read one of the guest's articles on Substack. It was the last line that got me, and which inspires this longer-than-normal newsletter. 

The article (on war, a different topic than we'd discuss on the show) was stunning in the best way. The kind that arrests you in the first sentence and holds you hostage.

A relentless mirror held to my white, free-world privilege—to my luxury of looking away, and the privilege of others---no different than me---whose complacency of choice is mainlining media and binge-bitching in echo chambers. (The author's point is well taken; neither of us is doing anything.)

The more discomfort I felt, the more I wanted this person on my show. The authenticity, the unapologetic truth-telling, the ability to slice beneath my convenient reverie, our collective sophisticated sleepwalking—this is the energy I welcome on my podcast.

Let me say before I go any further that this is not a political piece. I'm in no way, shape, or form versed—nor is it my aim. What compels me is what lies beneath the rhetoric on either side

The last line of my potential guests' article is in capital letters. It's the moment where the piece might've earned a standing ovation—and probably did, for some.  

For me, I saw an unyielding pronouncement, a statement with the kind of certainty that silences complexity, that separates humanity — a blatant divide masquerading as moral clarity.

I won't share it because again, it is immaterial to my message.

Believe me when I tell you, I have not arrived at a wondrous place of unity even within my four cushy walls, let alone in incomprehensible horror. You can ask my family how many times a day I unravel into division – be it in mood, or an attack on self or other over arguably, nothing.

Even Red Hawk, who teaches us that all judgment is a strategy to avoid relationship and who tells us that his main aim is loving kindness, in a recent interview with me, went off on leaders and circumstances he deems destructive—that is judgment. “Don't get me started,” he said, catching himself in judgment mid-sentence. 

We are human—information runs through our conditioning and memory, and our minds spit out opinions, judgments, or preferences. By nature, these divide. Our nervous systems, trained for survival, automatically separate us to keep us alive. 

But for those of us here in the free world, our survival is not threatened. You may fear that it could be or will be, but in this moment, if your survival were threatened, you wouldn't be reading this. 

Thus, our division merely reveals a stark lack of consciousness and a reduction to the ugliest parts of ourselves.

It is not lost on me that in writing this, I run the risk of coming off as someone who pretends to “know.” Is it pure arrogance and naiveté to discuss non-judgment, given the devastation of the subject? Maybe. 

Especially when I take into account a level of trauma, perhaps that of the writer himself, which I can't begin to fathom. How much can we expect humans to endure?

But I am speaking now to those of us who have no such excuse (myself included). That we recognize that our perceived cause of evil and the place to lay blame (whatever that is for each of us), thus justifying our rage, is in the eyes (and the favored media outlets) of the beholder.

Our egos tell us that whatever position we hold is the right one, the just one. Or, alternatively, our ego says that hate is warranted because the other's position is so unjust. 

Here lies my point: Hate is Hate. We think that what we deem  “morally” repugnant warrants our unchecked disdain and thus justifies exhibiting the very hate that we seek to extinguish.

Hate is energy. The target does not change its form. Nor does its expression heal destruction and heartbreak. This is evidenced by the three comments the article garnered---each from a separate and predictable camp:

One trauma-bonded in whole-hearted righteous rage, another spewed equal hate back at the writer and the population he defended, and finally, a comment from the impenetrably numb---the person the writer had been trying to mobilize, “Interesting,” he yawned.

Hate manufactures more of itself.

Morality is not Conscience. Morality divides. It has rules. It has right and wrong, better than and worse than. It is driven by the mind. Conscience is Oneness. Wholeness. Conscience is Love. 

And our Conscience is now routinely overridden by our nervous systems and the ego-driven, habit-forming, memory banks that are our minds (not “those people's” conscience, mine, yours, all of ours).

That doesn't mean we pretend to exist on berries and fairy dust when we're being impoverished. It doesn't mean we become the Gestapo's doormats, or that we don't act in the face of injustice. Conscience is not passive.

Conscience (love), like hate, is energy. When we seek to right what we perceive as wrong without conscience, we behave as unconscionably as the other. We become the other.

I hesitate to say this, but just to give a relatable example: if you hate Trump because of his hatefulness, you are Trump. ***(This is not an invitation to political debate; please refrain.)

It follows then that healing comes in the transmutation of our internal division (judgment/hate) toward self, other, and circumstance. In other words, we must stop running around doing exactly what those we hate do and calling it nobility. 

Micky Singer exemplifies this in his book The Surrender Experiment. He describes his harrowing experience of being accused of fraud, taken to court, losing his business, and enduring all manner of injustice. 

He leveraged the best defense he could—all while simultaneously practicing love and compassion for the district attorney, whom he knew believed she was doing what was “right.”

It turns out that Gabor Maté shares my potential podcast guest's perspective. I recently heard him on Hasan Minhaj's podcast (highly recommend by the way.) However, if you soak in the energy and tone of Gabor's words, there is no hate (maybe it's just his ridiculously calming voice).

There is remorse. There is sadness. There is incomprehension, devastation, and a great sense of injustice. But he doesn't speak of it divisively; the energy of hate is not to be found. 

How do we behave less like our ego-driven selves and more like Mickey and Gabor? 

Maybe the first question in this day and age, when it may feel downright ignorant or comatose to not succumb to anger and fear, is: Why do we want to? 

I had a situation like Mickey's years ago that threatened to take our family business down, and I did not handle it with anywhere near the maturity and grace. 

As a result, I suffered greatly. I riddled my body and mind with rage and shame and fear. It didn't change anything about the situation, only how I walked through it. 

Gurdjieff calls this Involuntary Suffering – meaning unconscious, automatic, egoic, and habit-driven suffering. In doing so, I did not grow, evolve, or learn anything new. I only endured.

Voluntary Suffering is the kind that Gabor and Mickey model for us. It is not about acting happy-happy-joy-joy in the midst of pain. It is the opposite. It is with conscious awareness of our inner and outer worlds. 

It is with presence in the real-world reality and what that reality invokes in us. Rather than suffering rage, righteousness, guilt, shame, or fear, we suffer with sorrow and remorse. We suffer our utter helplessness. 

In my tiny little life, when I remember to place my attention thus (which is far from always), it's my experience in that suffering, and only there, may I catalyze change. I am not directed by my thoughts or emotions, or a voice in my head. It is a deeper knowing that has me either do or not do, without judgment. 

I was recently asked on a podcast if I could forgive a person if they killed someone I loved. I said, I didn't know, but I would die trying (just as I am still laboring to forgive far less crimes from my past). 

Not because I am altruistic. Far from it. But because it is my experience of my life that I seek to affect. It also happens to be my belief that this act is my personal responsibility toward healing the collective. 

“G-d forgive [us], [we] know not what [we] do.”