Love and Hate
He was filled with hate, she with love. He seemed to have it all, she very little. He envied her, yet never understood why.
The main theme of the continuing story of “The Man, The Wolf, The Woman and The Raven” is a story of the eternal battle between Love and Hate. But what is Love in reality, and what is Hate?
Love and Hate are the Yin and the Yang to each other. Another way to look at it, as with all things in the Yin-Yang, is that they are the two ends of a continuum. Pure Love is at one end, and Pure Hate is at the other. All of us humans have great propensity for both of these traits. The more we are at the Love end of the continuum, the healthier, happier and more content we are. The more we are at the Hate end, the sicker, angrier and more frustrated we are. Several of the religions have defined God as Pure Love and the Devil (or however you wish to call iT) as Pure Hate.
So, what are the qualities of Love and Hate? How are these terms defined? If you go to the dictionaries, you will most often see the following, or similar, words when defining Love and Hate:
Love: Affection, Strong Affection, Attraction, Tenderness, Benevolence, Devotion, Attachment, Admiration, Desire to be with, Endearment, Unselfishness, Concern.
Hate: Strong hostility, Aversion, Extreme dislike, Loathing, Despising, Anger, Arrogance.
You will notice Love is associated with positive words flowing outward, wanting to be close to another, while words associated with Hate, are negative words flowing inward, or better said, a desire to be away from another. When there is any outflow from Hate, it is to humiliate, ridicule, hurt or destroy.
On the continuum there are three sections. At one end is Hate, in the middle is Indifference and at the other end is Love. People who are dominated by Love tend to have positive feelings toward others, even if they do not know them very well while people who are dominated by Hate tend to have negative feelings toward others. Indifference is a lack of feeling one way or the other.
About Hate:
Hate is negative. A person consumed with hate is very selfish, only concerned about himself and usually is self-loathing. He is consistently looking for gratification and personal pleasure and is rarely satisfied once he gets what he wants. He is normally all about himself and sees others as they benefit him; this is projecting inward. Sometimes he does project his feelings outward because he often wishes to see others suffer, which in a way is still projecting inward. If he succeeds, his pleasure is short lived because he is still miserable and self-loathing. In hating others he increases his negativity and this is very self-destructive. Hate truly is a poison.
A person of this sort rarely has positive feelings toward others. When he is involved in relationships, whether they be of a sexual sort, or just “friends,” it is one of convenience or self-interest and does not have the benefits one gains from relationships based on love. A person full of hate will turn on his friends quickly if they stop fulfilling his needs because he does not deem them of value, nor will he forgive them because of real or perceived injuries because that is a trait of Love, not Hate.
The more he hates the more he becomes bitter, unhappy and inwardly drawn. If he hates enough, he is drawn so much into himself that, to him, he is all there is and since he is self-loathing, he eventually becomes nothing and his soul dies.
I don't know if there is anyone capable of Pure Hate, but the closer we are to it the more consistently miserable we are.
Pure Hate can't see love because all he cares about is himself and is incapable of understanding the concept of doing something without personal gain in return, or the pleasure received by giving of one's self.
Have you noticed when things aren't going well you are bad-tempered, easily irritated by others and you sometimes wish bad things on them? Unfortunately all of us have a great tendency to hate which usually hurts only us, not the object of our Hate. The more you fight Hate and seek Love, the happier you are.
About Love:
Love is positive. A person consumed with Love is always reaching out with joy, kindness and caring. He sees beauty all around him: beauty in the earth, fauna, flora and the people he meets. The more he reaches out with Love, the more it comes back to him.
His friendship is a true friendship where he is willing to help others for the sheer joy in doing so.
Love has several dimensions, or said another way, types of Love. There is the Love of the protectors: parents for their children, teachers for their students, and soldiers and first responders for their country and fellow citizens.
There is the Love of the protected: children for the parents, students for their teachers and grateful citizens for their soldiers and first responders.
There is the Love of equals: brothers and sisters for each other, husband and wife, and true friends for one another.
The Love of friends is most interesting because of the different degrees. We can have friends who are barely past the level of acquaintances, to those who we would die for.
About Sexual Hate and Sexual Love:
There is a special kind of Hate that has the component of sexuality connected with it. Sexuality has various components of which one is sexual attraction. Sexual attraction has little to do with Love or Hate. You can be sexually attracted to someone you know nothing about nor have any feelings of love or hate toward. If there are any feelings at all it is based on your assumption of what kind of person the individual is, which may, or may not, be true.
Those who are more about Hate than Love may act upon this attraction using distain, contempt, dominance or even rape to further their Hate.
This most demeaning use of sexual attraction is harmful. Rapists are filled with Hate and, though there may be a physical attraction, there is no caring or empathy. The importance of the person who a hateful person is attracted to is only the pleasure that can be received with no interest in the object of this attraction's well-being.
Sometimes sexual attraction can lead to sexual involvement for short term gratification with neither Hate nor Love being a factor because the thing of concern is self-gratification, and no interest or concern toward other(s) is involved. This is often called the “one night stand,” or “hooking up.” This relates to Indifference; since it is short term it often leaves those involved, empty.
Continuing on this continuum is sexual attraction toward an acquaintance or a friend. When acted upon this can be very enjoyable because both parties are trying to give pleasure to the other, and it fulfills other needs besides just temporary pleasure. However, this can be very dangerous because usually, though not always, one party becomes more involved than the other, often leading to disruption of an otherwise good friendship.
The other end of the continuum is sexual attraction between two people who truly love each other. This is what we refer to as Sexual Love. When taken to fruition this is by far the most joyous. Sometimes the sexual attraction is what causes the development of the relationship but at other times the sexual attraction develops after a friendship has developed first.
The continuing story of The Man, The Wolf, The Woman and The Raven has two love stories---one that does not have sexual attraction as a component and the other that does. Louve loves Blaidd with her whole heart and soul. but it is a chaste Love. She would never consider him as a sexual partner. Blaidd goes away never to return. Later in the book she meets Ravenwolf and loves him as she loved Blaidd. However, Ravenwolf is young and Louve is sexually drawn to him. So these two Loves are almost the same, but the addition of the sexual attraction to the one adds spice to the mix making it different and more strongly felt. This is what can be referred to as Sexual Love. In the end, when two people truly love each other, are committed and find each other physically desirable, the act of making love is truly one of the very most wonderful experiences that can be had and one that those who hate, or are indifferent, will never be able to experience.
The healthfulness and happiness in a society is directly related to the degree of the amount of Love or Hate that is in the people that make up that society. If we want a healthy, happy society we should encourage Love and discourage Hate, in ourselves and in others.
There is an old Cherokee saying that I think is fantastic concerning Love and Hate. These are not my words; I took them from a website: http://www.barefootsworld.net/wolveswithin.html, though the wording was on several other websites as well.
An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice..."Let me tell you a story.
"I too, at times, have felt great hate for those who have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do. But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It's like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times. "
"It is as if there are two wolves inside me; one is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.
"But...the other wolf... ah! The littlest thing will send him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all of the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing."
"Sometimes it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit.”
The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked, "Which one wins, Grandfather?"
The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, "The one I feed."
Our society would be so much better off if we all try to feed the good wolf that does no harm; would you not agree?
enough