“You have periodically come across as a total a$$,” out of the blue wrote a Chowk interactor to me recently at Chowk.

Disturbed and disgusted, as if I accidentally stepped on a dog shit, “One has a certain capability of understanding the other. Your statement above makes clear your capability.” I wrote politely, trying to wash the shit off my shoe.

But, alas, it didn’t end for me there. My disgust turned to anger, and anger to hate. I hated that man, whom I never met nor I ever will, for writing that sentence to me. I have no idea who he is. Yet I despised him. What a waste of a human flesh, I thought to myself. I started to plan. I thought of some of the most odious, contemptuous, degrading, and hateful sentences I could think of that I would write to him at Chowk. I’ll make him bleed. Rub his nose in the dirt. Rip him apart. Make him sorry he was ever born. Just wait. I patiently waited for him to make a mistake and write a nasty post to me again. But what if doesn’t do that? Not in the near future anyway? Okay, I thought to myself, I’ll make the first move and say something nasty about him. Knowing his rude and disgraceful attitude, he’s sure to come cursing back at me. This man has no respect for anything holy, he wouldn’t care about me, I thought. I’ll then have him cornered. I’ll make him eat his own excrement. Hatred filled my entire body, as if there was no blood in my veins, but a raging, boiling, river of hate.

I became alarmed. I was shocked at myself for the hatred I was capable of. Scared the crap out of me. I thought of all those vivid psychic images that were to follow upon my death. Now, there’s a scary thought!

But the hatred for that man had seeped through my entire body. I was immersed in it. I just posted a mean remark at Chowk about him, totally out of the blue. I made the first move. I didn’t want to do that, but I couldn’t help myself. I felt trapped in hatred. Couldn’t get out of it. There’s a bigger problem for me now. What if he comes back to me with another mean remark. What am I going to do? Ignore? But that would be so unlike me. I can’t let him slide. No way, man. I’m no coward. I can take anything, from anyone, at anyplace, and hit back twice as hard. And besides, what all the Chowkies will think of me, caving in like that. That would be totally unbearable and unacceptable to me. And what about all those mean, odious remarks I have cooked up for him? Some of them are so nasty that they will make him squirm. I smiled at my own meanness.

Alarmingly disturbed by my hatred, I started to look for a psychological book on hate. Couldn’t find a good one on why we hate? I finally located a book. But, as my luck would have it, “Why We Hate” is due for its first printing in June. So I have to figure it out by myself. Can’t wait that long.

Why we hate? I don’t know. I hated someone I have no clue of because he insulted me. And if I could be so full of hate just because he called me an ass, what about the Palestinians and the Israelis in the Middle East, and the Hindus and Muslims in Gujrat? If I could hate an unknown man so much for calling me a name, their degree of hate towards each other is probably beyond imagination.

Hatred is probably as old as the humanity itself. It has existed throughout history. It is an uncontrollable urge. It is something primordial. It can occur at random. Any time. An event can shakeup entire group of people, with murder, genocide, and rape to follow. Centuries old past atrocities can be told and retold to ensure that hatred does not go away. Myths, and hatred that follows, perpetuated. To me, preaching hatred is a lot worse sin than not preaching love.

For me, now, the important question is not why we hate, but how to stop it. It is a monster that needs to be conquered within, by each individual.

I have decided never to hate, starting with that man at Chowk who called me an ass, and probably has some more colorful adjectives for me. Let him come back with a nasty one. I’m keeping quiet. Will take it on the chin. Hate is an evil I must conquer within. It’s a monster I must slay. For my own sake. I will not hate anyone anymore. I hope Chowkies wish me luck. I will need it.

Pennsylvania

April 2002