[note: The Other People, part one...a new, updated, improved edition, actually...kinda like a director’s cut...is at Elephant Journal...and reading this one without also reading that would be, y’know, like watching the Empire Strikes Back when ya haven’t seen Star Wars...or something...]
...self-hatred has been kind of an issue...made particularly difficult by the fact that, if you want outside support for self-hatred...that classic what other people think or would think if they knew kinda evidence for whatever might appear to be wrong with you...it’s never really hard to find...
...won’t you recognize us? We’re everything you hate...
Lou Reed
...some women hate men...and there are a whole lotta men who hate women...(have inscribed it into the belief systems of most cultures, no less)...then, whatever your gender, culture, race, nationality, religion and political views or lack thereof, there are, when ya get right down to it, a whole buncha people in the world who hate you for it...for what you have or don’t have...for what you believe or don’t believe...think or don’t think...who you love or don’t love...whatever you do or don’t do...for fitting certain definitions of ugly...though fitting too neatly into certain categories of beauty might make them hate you even more...
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
...practicing yoga, it’s said, can make a person less hateful, more at peace with the world...but it doesn’t always work out that way...and certainly doesn’t stop some people from hating yogis for being self-righteous, pretentious, flaky, empty-headed, wishy-washy, uptight, stupid, new-agey, out there, nuts, irritating, shallow followers of popular trends, mindless guru-worshippers, or frickin’ dirty hippies...spiritual tourists, arrogant unthinking western imperialist appropriators and colonizers of indigenous traditions, freaks, religious fanatics, granola nazis, demonic pagans, or godless heathens...creepy horny dudes who go to yoga classes to pick up women*, yoga faggots**, people who’ve obviously done way too much acid*** and/or are headed straight for eternal damnation...
...they hated me, they will hate you...
Sinead O'Connor
...some people will hate you for hating...or for not hating...or for hating the wrong people...or, no doubt, for hating the right people, but in the wrong way...some people hate themselves so much it's nearly impossible not to hate everybody they see...and, even more, to hate those they don't see....perhaps it says something about human beings’ boundless creative capacity that we can come up with so many reasons to hate other people...and maybe even more to hate ourselves...(if only because we have so much inside information to work with)...(though, in the end, I suspect it’s all the same thing)...
...(not to say it isn't sometimes a good thing to listen to criticism, or to critically assess oneself)...(now and then, if somebody thinks you’re an asshole, it could be because you’ve provided a really good reason)...
...(but...if you’re waiting for the whole world to think you’re okay to feel okay about yourself, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath)...
* the author has been suspected of this...
** and called this...
*** no comment...
...self-hatred has been kind of an issue...made particularly difficult by the fact that, if you want outside support for self-hatred...that classic what other people think or would think if they knew kinda evidence for whatever might appear to be wrong with you...it’s never really hard to find...
...won’t you recognize us? We’re everything you hate...
Lou Reed
...some women hate men...and there are a whole lotta men who hate women...(have inscribed it into the belief systems of most cultures, no less)...then, whatever your gender, culture, race, nationality, religion and political views or lack thereof, there are, when ya get right down to it, a whole buncha people in the world who hate you for it...for what you have or don’t have...for what you believe or don’t believe...think or don’t think...who you love or don’t love...whatever you do or don’t do...for fitting certain definitions of ugly...though fitting too neatly into certain categories of beauty might make them hate you even more...
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
...practicing yoga, it’s said, can make a person less hateful, more at peace with the world...but it doesn’t always work out that way...and certainly doesn’t stop some people from hating yogis for being self-righteous, pretentious, flaky, empty-headed, wishy-washy, uptight, stupid, new-agey, out there, nuts, irritating, shallow followers of popular trends, mindless guru-worshippers, or frickin’ dirty hippies...spiritual tourists, arrogant unthinking western imperialist appropriators and colonizers of indigenous traditions, freaks, religious fanatics, granola nazis, demonic pagans, or godless heathens...creepy horny dudes who go to yoga classes to pick up women*, yoga faggots**, people who’ve obviously done way too much acid*** and/or are headed straight for eternal damnation...
...they hated me, they will hate you...
Sinead O'Connor
...some people will hate you for hating...or for not hating...or for hating the wrong people...or, no doubt, for hating the right people, but in the wrong way...some people hate themselves so much it's nearly impossible not to hate everybody they see...and, even more, to hate those they don't see....perhaps it says something about human beings’ boundless creative capacity that we can come up with so many reasons to hate other people...and maybe even more to hate ourselves...(if only because we have so much inside information to work with)...(though, in the end, I suspect it’s all the same thing)...
...(not to say it isn't sometimes a good thing to listen to criticism, or to critically assess oneself)...(now and then, if somebody thinks you’re an asshole, it could be because you’ve provided a really good reason)...
...(but...if you’re waiting for the whole world to think you’re okay to feel okay about yourself, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath)...
* the author has been suspected of this...
** and called this...
*** no comment...
