"The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves." - Eric Hoffer

Hatred's easy. No, scratch that, it's damn easy.

I've wanted to say a few things to a few people over the years and it would have been as easy as picking up the phone or sending an e-mail. And you could say I got pretty good at holding a grudge, spent half my life perfecting it and only more recently have I been able to put aside grudges I've had since...well, since I was in third grade.

It seems like our race has perfected the art of hatred. We're brought up learning about these cartoon ideas called "good" and "evil" and we find that anything that makes us feel good must be "good" and anything that doesn't is something to be disliked or even hated. As groups we're capable of promulgating hatred over the centuries without batting an eye and as people we can spend our last few breaths hating people who, for all intents and purposes, were just doing their best like I'm doing my best and you're doing your best and we're all just fallen angels doing our best and all too often hating each other for it.

Hatred's easy.

I could hate you. I could hate you right now. I mean, you don't fulfill me. You don't give me gifts when I need them. You don't listen to me when I most need to be listened to. You don't accept me for who I am. You don't like the things I like. You disagree with me. You abuse me. You talk behind my back without apology. You see other men while putting on a facade of faithfulness. You tell me you love me and you're never there when I need you. Yeah, I could hate you and I could hate you right now.

It seems like I got lost in the illusions of hatred. Then one day I made it my teacher. What did my anger and hatred say about me? Was I truly the loving and forgiving and understanding and thoughtful person I assumed I was? Did I really accept others for who they were? Hatred always just ate me up inside, hatred was like smoking, hatred is like smoking, hatred is smoking.

Puff. Puff... Pufffff.....

Smoking is easy. Disloyalty is easy. Dishonesty is easy. Disfunction is easy. Giving up is easy. Fucking around is easy. Cowardice is easy. Hatred is easy.

Our bodies by their very nature create distance between us. Why give in to those things that only increase that distance? Why hate when everyone suffers for it?

Why?