A World Full of Hate

Sometimes, I get pretty frustrated with the world. I share this with very few people. Everyone else gets my brave face, even if that's not what I feel.

Years ago, a friend scolded me: "Boyd, one day you'll learn this world is full of hateful people, and there's no use in trying to fight against it. You'll lose."

Since I like to please people, my first thought was to just agree with her and let that be that. But my friend was honest with me, so I should be honest with her.

"I respect your opinion. It means quite a lot to me—more than you realize. But I think you might be wrong. Nobody just wakes up one day with hate in their heart. Nobody just decides one day that it's fine to hurt other people; we were all taught better than that as children.

When I look out in the world, I see an awful lot of hurt people, an awful lot of misplaced blame, and loving people who don't know how to love. It's really hard to know how to love. I'm absolutely terrible at it, but that doesn't mean I don't feel it.

I've never known anybody who was just hateful. Love is utterly simple. It's a thing with just one part, and we all recognize it. Hate, though, hate is complicated. Hate is more complicated than a Swiss watch. Hate is almost never directed at what actually hurts somebody, but we have to direct our hurt somewhere so we hate somebody else.

I love you, I respect your opinion, but I don't think hate is even real."