Roland Michel Tremblay

I hate anyone who is not like me. I hate anyone who is not white, who is not a capitalist, who is not a Christian, who does not live in my country, who is not of the same social class as I am, who does not share exactly all my beliefs and ideologies, and who is not a homosexual man. I could not possibly love anyone, so, I hate you! Don’t despair, you’re just the same. You just won’t admit it. And now, let’s go to war!

Hate is such a satisfying emotion, it is even highly encouraged by just about everyone around you, your parents, teachers, friends, religious preachers, and government officials. Hating what goes against the party line, the main ideology of the country, is desirable. Hating that neighbour is as normal as enjoying the Sun in the summer sky. And hating those Muslims, those Chinese, those Russians, those Communists, those Africans, and just about everyone else in the world, is perfectly normal! Let’s face it, who could possibly love them? Not I! I have been taught better. I hate everyone, even myself!

Don’t worry, I am not a love preacher. Just like everyone else, I love to hate everyone else. I can’t stand any of you for a start, you are such a disappointment to any ideal I might have been born with, any ethical value I might have picked up along the way. I love you just as you are, people incapable of love, even though you’re preaching love to a screech.

I’m so cool, so cool, no one else could possibly be… that cool. This is why I am so exploding right into your face! Oh, calm down, I can be so down to earth when it is necessary. I did live down there, from where no idea ever comes out. Then, you have no choice but living down to Earth. These people, are they just already dead? Just like you are right now? Oh, yes, you are all already dead, aren’t you? Just like they are down there. That explains it all!

It has always been first about any kind of poetry that might still exist within this world. Poetry is now long dead. I’m afraid, hate is all that remains. This is an inside, I am allowed at this point. You don’t need to understand anything about this world, believe me. If only it was not all going right over your head! You just need to wake up man! I am certainly speaking your language.

As love is a concept that has been abused over the centuries, love is a concept completely overrated at any rate. But not hate, it has remained much the same for most of humankind’s history. It is the only argument, the only driving force behind anything, behind any of the policies of any nation. So, why should you be so surprised, to find out, that we are incapable of love? You wanted it this way, you made it happen, and now, we can only hate, everything and everyone, you above all else.

Hate is an extraordinary driving force in this world. It can motivate nations to go to war and gain something in return, though we are rarely privy to what we might gain, if anything, if it does not all go to corrupt officials and some rich corporations. But hate is the driving force behind it all.

Something needs to be done, some nations need to be eradicated, genocides just have to be accomplished, and none of that could happen unless there was hate motivating the ones accomplishing the dirty work. I’m so clever, am I not? And why are you not? And figure it all out for yourself? God! Just develop a brain or something.

Which brings the question, why do we hate anyone? How is it accomplished that suddenly a whole nation can hate another nation? Clever mind games are obviously at work here, this is the reason governments spend so much money in PR and propaganda, to further their own political agendas.

I was nearly convinced recently to hate all Jewish people and all of Israel, for what they are doing in Palestine. Of course, it must somehow be some sort of government ploy, surely I truly should love them all? I was nearly convinced recently that we had to annihilate 70 millions Iranians. No reason was given to me apart from that they may be developing a nuclear weapon. But I know better, I know I need to love everyone, Jesus-Christ said so. You must have heard of him? I think he only spoke of love, though we tend to forget it in time, hate is so fashionable nowadays, as it always was. Jesus-Christ was all about hate, wasn’t he? Oh yes he was, if we are to believe everything we hear, and I certainly hear it all, and I certainly believe it all. Hate it is, war it is, to infinity and for eternity!

At the moment we have been told to hate Muslims, all of the Middle-East, and as a result we went to war, and this war is still raging. Millions of people have died, most of them civilians. This hate was driven home by the fact that 20 of them destroyed two towers in New York a decade ago. Without that, we would not hate them, we would go on ignoring their existence, just as we did before. And now, before this is over, a Third World War will be upon us. We will see then just how much hate can be a driving force in the world, but perhaps none of us will survive to find out.

There are many people I hate on this planet, so much so that I wouldn’t mind if they were to die right now. It would be interesting to analyse them all, and find the common points I can’t stand in all those creeps. The government thinks the same, or else we wouldn’t be at war.

Without thinking too much though, I have to say, I couldn’t hate anyone who likes me. And the ones I hate at first sight, I think I may feel that way because I believe they couldn’t like me. No one could love America right now, everyone in the world hates me!

Which brings the question, are there any occurrences of people I hated the first time I met them, and it turned out that they liked me, and so I liked them back? Yes, plenty. I’m wondering, is there anyone I would hate on this planet if everyone loved me? Perhaps not, I might just have no reason to hate them.

This is not true of the government though, they would still go on hating the people who likes them. And anyway, who could even entertain the idea of liking them now? They have done everything they could to be the most despised people in the world. Not only our enemies want to go to war with our governments, but the people in our own countries would like nothing better than go to war with our own political leaders. Hate is just universal.

We will go on hating as much as is necessary, in order to eventually get to love everything and everyone. Because, ultimately, we feel love! It drives us insane! We just have to love everything and everyone! Pass me the bucket, the large one. I am not, unlike you, an idealistic person. I’d rather go to war. Brainwashing works beautifully on me.

I sometimes hate people I never met and will never meet. And so I will never know if they could like me or love me. This hate against love story could never be answered then. Is it just that I feel they could not love me? That we are somehow incompatible? I am a fairly good judge of character, I can tell right away if someone will like me or not. I’m rarely wrong, and those people don’t usually make a complete turn around to suddenly declare that they like me. And so there is always some hate between us, no matter all the efforts I could make, or their efforts if they are wiling to give it a try.

Is there any other reason I could hate someone apart from the “you don’t like me, then how can I like you”? Jealousy? Being envious of someone who gets something I wanted, when I feel it should have been mine? Especially when they’re crap and that I think I’m so great, never mind if I am or not? Yeah, I’ve been known to hate people for these reasons. This unfairness, the injustice of it all.

Some people are just blatantly selfish, they will take credit for what you did, and as it seems, will never even give it a second thought. This is something I could never do, I couldn’t live with myself. And yet, many people did it to me. I cannot love these people, no matter what, no matter if they loved me.

Some others are simply there just waiting for you to fall down, hoping for it, making sure it will happen. They are there stirring up events, overlooking everything you do, and then run to your boss ready to denounce you. What is surprising is that I never did that myself, and yet they feel the need to destroy me without any apparent reason other than they simply dislike me. I suppose, if they didn’t like me to begin with, I couldn’t like them either, and so the war begins, until one or the other has been annihilated. Usually me, since I never retaliate, take my revenge, or play these mind games. Anger is what then fills my heart.

I observed that many people around me seem to feel nothing when confronted with these situations, it rolls all over their back and they keep smiling. And the worst of it, is that it seems that because of it, others tend to leave them alone, as they are not seen as a threat.

God I wish sometimes I could be Gandhi. I would never usually refer to him or anyone like him, except that for a while now I’ve been thinking of him. How would he have coped with the bitchiness and the backstabbing I witness everyday at work? What would Mother Teresa feel if she had gone through everything I have gone through in this life?

I feel they got it easy, because my life has been a nightmare, paved with hate everywhere I have ever been. I was never prepared for it, I’m still really bothered and upset by any insignificant dig against me. How I wish I could just brush it off, and in doing so, make it all disappear as if none of it existed. Just go on ignoring evil around me.

Simple minded people tend to be blind to the bitchiness and the backstabbing. They are always happy no matter what. My own brain is always in overdrive, I see everything, I overanalyse everything, I don’t miss a trick. I can quote the backstabbing that was reported to my boss, even though I wasn’t there and that I cannot be certain that there even was a backstabbing. And yet, I’m always right in the end, my paranoia is always justified. I’m rarely off the mark.

“Le Regard d’Autrui” is something debated in philosophy. A concept I thought was completely ridiculous and a waste of time. The “Look of others on you”, is how I would translate that, though I’m sure there is a better translation available out there. I never thought it was worthy of philosophy until I had to spend hours in trains going to Central London, and once there, walk all around those stations, and especially the escalators. In one day you can easily be confronted with something like a few thousand people looking directly at you, assessing you, judging you, even though you will never speak with any of them.

I came to loathe it terribly. Almost reacting like those people who, if you look at them for too long, suddenly will jump a few yards just to punch you in the face. And your crime was to look at them for perhaps 10 seconds too long, and that proved to be too much for them. Their insecurity, paranoia, instantly tells them there must be something wrong with you, since obviously you would not look at them if there was not something wrong.

It is all pure hate, and this right to some sort of privacy, even in the middle of a crowd. Why not look at the ceiling instead? Why not indeed. The ceilings in the London Underground are just peachy! Worth looking at instead of anyone else. I do it all the time now, in order to pretend that no one else is looking at me, in order to pretend that no one exists in this world. That would be just peachy. It bothered me so much after a while.

Well, you have to understand that I spent a whole decade in crowded trains and underground all over London, that the only way I could go through all this was to avoid looking at anyone. If I couldn’t see them looking at me, then they might as well not exist. I don’t care if they’re looking at me, judging me, if I don’t know it, I’m fine. And it works, when you actually can go into robot mode for an instant, and every time something you don’t like happens. But before you know it, you’re permanently into robot mode, feeling no emotion whatsoever, just to survive it all.

I’m not Avril Lavigne, this cool bird who, right at the centre of the largest metropolis, wants the whole planet to notice her, singing at the top of her lungs on the top of cars. I want to go unnoticed, I want die within the masses, as if I didn’t exist at all. And dear me, all I can see everywhere, in everyone, is hate, people looking at me, judging me, hating me, hating the world. We’re no Avril Lavigne, nor would we want to, as we have nothing to sell.

So, why don’t you just look somewhere else? There is a perfectly nice looking decrepit ceiling right above your head, right in the Underground of Central London! Don’t look at me, don’t speak to me, because, by definition, we hate each other, we can’t stand each other! Look at that ceiling, die within it for all I care, it is fine by me. I had enough of hate, we can go on ignoring each other just like that, for a whole lifetime, as far as I’m concerned. Or, we can go to war. Your choice. This is all how it gets started, the story of most Actual Bodily Harm, don’t you just love hate? I love to love hate.

Now, how can this be transposed to people who hate me and backstab me? If I could somehow ignore it, then I could still be nice to them, ignoring their true nature, how bad they are treating me. Very difficult, it is not as simple as looking the other way, when you know deep down what is going on in your back.

This is perhaps what Mother Teresa and Gandhi are capable of, in my mind. They must have this ability to be blind to the bitchiness around them. Somehow it doesn’t affect them in the slightest. They can then go on with their business, without any confrontation, fights, wars. And never mind if the whole country is at war in the background, killing thousands if not millions!

How can one be blind to all this? Not be bothered by it? How can anyone acquire this weird but essential wisdom? I wish I could, this is perhaps the hardest lesson I’ve got to learn. And it would explain why for the last decade I’ve been but a prisoner of these offices, filled with bitchiness to the brink. I still have to learn that lesson, and somehow I’m about to claim that I will never overcome this obstacle, I will never learn to love even the ones who hate me. We just love to hate everything and everyone, don’t we?

And yet, this is key. Loving the ones who hate us, whilst not doing anything to justify that hate. And this is the whole Jesus-Christ message as well. That important lesson is one that everyone fails on, and when you reach the point where you can clearly state it like I’m doing now, and look for ways to reach the solution, to change enough to become a Saint, then I guess you are wise. How wise you really are then, depends on how successful you are at being blind to everything going around you. Just live the best way you can, good luck man!

It will help me a great deal now that I have written about it. I will try, I hope I can succeed. To love the ones who hate me. I always tried, I always failed in the end. Too much hate comes my way, and to love in those conditions proves to be overwhelming, simply impossible. I just hate you, whoever you are, just get lost!

There must be a way, it must become possible somehow. It is just a change in my own attitude, in our own attitude. Maybe, just maybe, once I will succeed. I will love someone who truly hates me, who would stop at nothing to destroy me. And then maybe, just maybe, they will eventually love me back, or at the very least I could hope not to be bothered by their hate.

I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone actually hates us. Is it just in our mind? Is it just propaganda? Maybe the world is at our knees, loving us for what we are not? It doesn’t erase the fact that hate is the emotion that drives us to go to war, to commit genocides, even though none of us truly cares, none of us is even aware. Hate, is a powerful emotion. It drives our destiny, it drives the world, and before we know it, it will also destroy the world.

Somehow, we’ll have to learn to stop hating. Somehow, we’ll have to learn to ignore all the messages from life. That despite it all, we are incapable of hate, because, just because, life can be so wonderful, as soon as you are blind to it all. I am so idealistic, I think I need to be shot. Hate has always driven this world, hate will always drive this world.

This is now a debate between loving or hating. I love you! I love everyone! I don’t care about anything else in this world. I can just feel some sort of weird love for everyone, no matter how much you hate me, no matter how you look at me down in the Underground of Central London.

I am at the top of that car, singing life away, just like Avril Lavigne, and somehow we will end up loving each other, and finally bring peace upon this world, ignoring all government propaganda to satisfy unimportant war agenda. Or, this is war. What will you choose?

Oh, I so love you all! How could you hate me for loving you so much? You can’t. So let’s just fall in love with each other all over again. No need for hate in this world, we can always turn a blind eye to it whenever hate creeps up.

No need for hate in this world, I love you!

***

“Without irony, this life would hardly be worth living.”

Roland Michel Tremblay

rm@themarginal.com

http://www.themarginal.com/destructivism.htm