Dao and De wrote: I'm searching for an answer to this question, myself. Lately I've been struggling with a deep and profound hatred of someone who hurt me. I've loved and lost several times, but it's never been quite like this before, and thankfully a certain part of me is self-aware enough to realize that hatred isn't the answer. There is something extremely cathartic about the idea of making this person feel deep, excruciating emotional/psychological pain, the idea of getting them to feel the way that I feel. As if it will prove some kind of point that I feel was missed. Thankfully I only cut myself off from them instead. I don't want to become someone who hurts others for relief. But still, all my attempts at self-reflection are inevitably cut short by this burning desire for revenge, that just seems to self-reinforce the more I think about it and consume all other rationale, until I force myself to forget. Even now as I write this I'm tempted instead to explain the opposite viewpoint--the one that I know is wrong, and that I need to tether myself to a mental "rock" in order to find my way back from--which is that there DO exist people who lack the capacity for empathy, who inherently reject genuine human connection and substitute it with devices for control, who lie pathologically and who will wring all the life out of anyone who gets too close until they've been used up, and then discard them like a wet paper towel. And that these people deserve to have every bit of the pain they've caused dished back at them, with interest, and then some. And that maybe, just maybe, the world could be better off without them...
Of course, I remind myself, even the most emotionally disconnected among us are only acting out of pain, and when I think of this person in that way, I understand completely--given everything they've been through--how they could become this way, and how it isn't my fault for not seeing it in time. And I know, consciously, that the best I can do is move on with my life--and even from the point of view of the illusory "dark side," the best "revenge," if one could call it that, would be precisely that: Moving on, being reborn, and building myself back up where they thought to tear me down.
But that knowledge only carries me so far, until I'm reminded again, by the next song or dream or even acts of kindness from others--ones that they've now conditioned me to suspect as false and manipulative--pulls me out of the world again, and makes me act negatively. I don't want this, and I want to understand it, so that I can be myself again.
Wow... This is simply an excellent response. You've exceeded my expectations. I have to commend you. You didn't have to make it personal but you did it. And you did it in a very smart and conscious way. Although you spoke of something negative my view of you has gone in the opposite direction. Bravo.
