on emotional misconduct

i started writing this months ago about one emotion. then when i picked it up again, that one turned into two. the two are so closely related that i feel no need to adjust my use of nouns.

i'm glad i know what pure, all-consuming hatred feels like. it's not a comfortable feeling; i don't like it. i'm glad that i am able to experience the full range of human emotions in all their depth, and i like learning about them. i believe it is my purpose as a human being to live the fullest human experience i can, and emotional experience is a big part of that.

hate is ugly. it makes me an ugly person, and i don't want it in me. and the truth is, i don't know why it's in me. i've heard it said--mostly by religious people, which always makes me suspicious (even though in this case i suspect it's true)--that forgiveness is the cure. but forgiveness is hard, especially when you can't identify what it is you need to forgive a person for. or when it's so many things that it seems impossible, or their behavior is so consistent that it seems the person will never change and it won't be worth the effort.

it's not always possible to deal with anger productively. edit: it may not always be simple to do so. what if the person or people with whom you are angry is/are not receptive to anything you have to say? yelling doesn't work. even in writing--i've written pages i can't even flip past anymore without feeling heat bubble into my face.

so my response, at least recently, has been to leave it behind. this may or may not be the same as ignoring it. i can admit that i'm angry, i can admit that i feel hatred, but it seems to me that there's no need to invest energy in those negative emotions. so i don't. the problem is that this leaves a lot of things unresolved. it would be much easier if letting go meant letting go, but anger is a stubborn beast. if there is no resolution, no explanation of what made me angry and no indication that the situation will change (or, at the worst case, absolutely nothing i can do about it), the slightest thing can trigger a descent right back down that slippery slope. stupid facebook with its old pictures in the right-hand column. a shared name on a television show. someone of similar stature or bearing seen from behind. adrenaline, heat, and frustration. what do you do? what am i supposed to do?

i don't think that experiencing anger, or even hate, is in itself somehow unenlightened. but i think this lack of understanding of how to deal with it, this uncertainty that my method will work, shows there is a lot i have left to learn. and i think it's terribly unfortunate that there are people who want to keep me in those emotions--even moreso that in so doing, those people are keeping themselves there. (what's really funny is, in so doing, they've accused me of the same.)

i hope this is a conversation i can continue to have with myself. it needs to be.