General Chat

I'm trying very hard not to, right at this minute. Not sure it's worth the effort though. Keep chanting - hate the behaviour not the person; hate the behaviour not the person; hate the behaviour not the person............ Nope, not sure I can do it!

Felicity I am an old person now and have seen a lot during my lifetime and have met people who are just plain evil. It is impossible to separate some personalities from their deeds, believe me. Unfortunately, you have to see it to believe it so what can I say to you? Len

Oh, Len, thank you for those wise words. I'm not very far off old myself and do agree with you. Life has taught me lessons that I'm finding hard to learn, perhaps just don't want to, paarticularly when I was once close to the person concerned. My father always told me that I got an unhealthy dose of idealism and he was right!! :-) It's a fault I'm still working on. (One of many!)

Yes I have. I still do and always will. J

Thank you to all who have added Like Felicity, I have always tried to hate the behaviour, not the person, but it is not always easy is it? Hi Len (of the Chilterns) I have read Narcissus and Goldmund and Siddartha by Hesse and found them both fascinating. My quotes come from a book of quotes and are often added to the board to reflect things happening at the time. They don’t necessarily reflect my own views. With the terrorism that has been going on I thought it would be interesting to see what comments would arise. Remarkably few people seem to have commented on hating terrorists and other criminals. Some people are able to forgive those that have committed the most terrible crimes and others of us hate the people who have committed them. Sometimes, and I STRESS only sometimes, if you know what has happened to someone in their own lives, I feel you can actually hate the behaviour and still like the person. We none of us can fully understand why terrorists, or in fact paedophiles, behave the way they do. Perhaps there is the capacity in all of us to commit crimes, especially if we are influenced by others to believe that what we are doing is ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’. Dee xx

Len - can I bring my hedge clippers too?!! Blunted ones so that the suffering was prolonged... Lily (AKA a Christian)

I have had moments of blind hatred but find it too exhausting to keep it at that level. I can usually let it go. I try to save hatred for the truly deserving - Hitler comes to mind. There have been people I've disliked intensely but there is no one I've hated on a personal level for longer than a few days, I've been lucky in that no one has harmed me enough for me to feel the same hatred that others on the thread feel. Gwynne

Gwynne, I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Hating people for harm they've caused you isn't difficult. It's forgiving and forgetting what they did that is. If a person hasn't been harmed to any great extent, it must be difficult for them to understand how others can hate those who have harmed them. I think we should all allow each other, and ourselves, to feel and respond individually to our own experiences, and not try to impose the 'love, peace and forgiveness' philosophy on ourselves or on those for whom that would create greater anxiety than expressing justifiable hatred. Anger and hatred bottled up do far more harm to a person than that which is expressed. CB >|<