In praise of hate

I was brought up Christian and my mother always told us that hatred was a sin. It's not something she banged on about but she was a loving and charitable person and she told us it was wrong to wish other people ill.

To a large degree I still go along with that. The idea is common in pop psychology as well as in religion that hatred corrodes the soul. It doesn't harm the object, but it harms you. When I was having a partucluarly nasty period of animosity with my ex, my father kept saying "My worry is that you will end up hating her".

And hatred can be corrosive. It can be obsessional, like an addiction, because it gnaws at your insides and it is unresolved. Most people don't like hatred; although it can be invigorating for a while, it is ultimately exhausting. It's not nutritious.

But the other thing that pop psychology encourages us to do is to establish and respect boundaries. I think it is valuable to think of hatred as a limit, a hedge, a defining line, rather than an emotion. As an emotion it can eat you alive. As a fence it is just something that protects you from whatever is on the other side. This goes for people, and it goes for drink.

Hatred can eat away at you, forgiveness is healthy. Clemency, mercy, understanding and the ability to take on and resolve internally the bitterness that comes from being wronged - these are good qualities. But forgiving somebody who is not sorry is very difficult, and not always worth it. The desire for resolution and reconciliation is natural and good but the exercise of achieving that when the other person will not acknowledge that they have done wrong can be just as exhausting as hatred is.

So I hate my ex. I try not to wish her ill. I try to extend my sympathy to the obvious troubles that make her so hard for me to deal with. But sometimes it's just as wholesome to hate her as to try to forgive her, as long as that hatred is a boundary or limit as much as a feeling. It's a tool I can use rather than an emotion that overwhelms me. (At least sometimes, when I'm doing it right...)

And hating alcohol is a good thing. It can help you feel active and heroic in your sobriety. It can give you a little jab of righteous ire that can help you to abjure the stuff. It can be a way of not engaging.