Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

There is an old saying, "There's a thin line between love, and hate". The more I ponder this, the more I believe it to be true. Hate is a strong word, and I can say that there is no one that I truly hate, but there are a few that I dislike a lot. Of this list of people, most, if not all of them, are people that I was enamored with, infatuated with, or in love with.
Why is this? When we have a falling out with someone we care about, why do the scales in our minds make such a drastic swing, from love, all the way to hate? Why don't they swing from love to ambivalence? Is the ego so vindictive, that when it is hurt, or senses an injustice caused by someone who supposedly cares about it, that it must seek revenge in the form of hate?
Apparently so.
When someone we like, or are indifferent to, wrongs us, we merely slot them into the asshole file and forget about them. It is hardly a blip on our radar of life. When someone we love, whether or not that person loves us in return, wrongs us, we immediately take all the emotion sitting on the "love" side of the scale, and dump it on the "hate" side. We do a 180 degree, about face on them. This causes a 8.0 on the Richter scale change in our lives.
Why don't we just slot them into the asshole file, and forget them?
Eventually, we do; time does heal all wounds. I believe it is the shock, surprise, and the ensuing hurt, that brings about such a drastic change in our feelings. I don't believe it is in the human makeup to be able to go from love to ambivalence, or from hate to ambivalence. Once we reach one extreme emotionally, such as love, the only change that can be made is to the other extreme...hate.
That is why, even though they are worlds apart, there is a thin line between love and hate.

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