I finished watching the PBS mini-series Flesh and Blood. I think it was well constructed and well done, but not what I needed at this time. Despite going to bed later than usual, I was up by 5 am. I didn't complete 6,000 steps before breakfast because my left leg was in a pinchy mood. I meditated when I came inside.
I have another appointment with my therapist. I've been doing it every week for now. I feel I have to get myself in the best shape I can to deal with whatever is coming up. I assume it is going to be challenging. As my niece said, "Whatever the outcome, half the country will be unhappy about it." I figure if little old Jewish ladies, my high school classmates, could have declared there would be a civil war if Trump didn't win in 2016, how can it not be so? These ladies aren't gun-toting white supremacists; they're not some fringe group. These ladies are already mainstream. Oy vay! I anticipate a shit storm. I also think I am lucky to live in Hawaii on the Big Island rather than on Oahu.
I have been focusing on facing difficult times with my therapist, materially and socially, with a loving, accepting heart. Felling hate would be the worst. And, of course, that's what I got to work on. A peace came over me, but that peace was contingent on the complete rejection of all other people. I got in touch with the presence of hate. There's some 'hate' in me for everyone. Something about everyone annoys me.
Since we all have a capacity for hate. Because it has survived in our species for all these millennia, it must have a positive function. What is it? (See musings for my speculations.) Like fear, hate has a survival function. Like anything that makes us uncomfortable about ourselves, we push it away. Who wants to acknowledge their capacity for hatred? I suppose some people are comfortable with it. They hate – the other team, the residents of the other country, the other race, the racists, the other religion. To do that, they have to demonize those people – all of them. "Ah, what a relief- a valid outlet for hate."
But if you don't have an excuse for hate, you have to face it in yourself, no excuses. What then? I always come back to Buddha's brilliant idea: the problem is with our craving and aversion in response to those feelings. I crave being a loving person; I have an aversion to being a hateful one. Feeling love feels great; feeling hate feels lousy. I am invested in being a loving person. Hatred undermines my self-image. What then?
If I accept and observe those feelings of hatred in myself, I don't have to make a big deal about them. They inform me of something. That's uncomfortable. Our edges rub against each other uncomfortably. Is that their fault or mine? Is it a fault?
D. was at his grandmother's, so no session today. We may try for tomorrow. I spent most of the day on the phone trying to track down Sears Service.
I drove to the Post office to mail one more box of books, stopped at the bank to get more cash in the forms of fives and tens. Yay, I'm preparing for the worst. If the economy collapses, it will be either inflation or depression. If it's depression, I want small bills. Inflation, forget about it. My mother described the experience with inflation in Germany.
She said people got paid twice a day and immediately ran out to the store to purchase food before the prices were raised again. People showed up with wheelbarrows full of money to buy groceries. My father described buying a tie for 10,000 marks. A mark was about the equivalent of a US dollar in German currency.
Then I headed over to the Big Island Dive Shop. I bought a weighted belt from them several months ago. No, I am not going deep-sea diving. My problem is that when I do regular swimming, my rear end floats up, forcing my head into the water.
I met with M. After last week's session, I felt more inclined to push her as she answered questions. She's overly attached to details and answering in complete sentences. However, it didn't take much to push her to answer questions with a few words- and then formulate a complete sentence. She probably can't do it on her own yet, but I don't anticipate it will take much to get her there. I have to wonder how she got herself in this hole. Was it something she created for herself, overdoing some teacher's good advice, or was this a response to parental pressure to always be right? I see her reaction as fear-based. I don't see any intellectual deficit.
When I was through with her, I headed back to town. I needed to take my car back to Kia. When I got home from my morning chores and turned off the car, the fan kept running. I tried turning the car off and back on again, but nothing had any effect. I had called Kia, and they said to bring it in. I had to disconnect the charger. The moment I did, the fan went quiet. I called Kia to ask if they understood what had happened. They said no; bring it in.
I had some chores to do before I went there. I stopped off at the Vet to pick up Elsa's pills and then stopped off at the Diving Shop to pick up the weight belt. Then I headed over to Kia. I got there at 3:30 pm. The intake desk was shut down already. I was told that the technicians had gone home around 3 pm. I was too late. This guy is testy. He is easily annoyed. I'd hate to be married to him.
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Musings:
I worked on hatred with my therapist today. I felt peaceful, enclosed in a cocoon of hate – for all humanity, no selectivity involved.
Hatred has a bad name; love had a good one. But we have all seen or heard stories of terrible actions done in the name of love, even to the object of that love. Very sneaky. We are a tricky species.
If love can be harmful, hate must have an upside. Observing myself, I see it this way. Something irritates me; something unpleasant arises in my gut, like acid reflux. I am aware it's unpleasant. I am angry at the person, the object that caused that anger. Not a nice feeling.
Let's say that feeling announces, "Not me!" It helps me know who I am. It helps me identify my boundaries. Maybe this is what we feel whenever we learn something new. Sometimes we interpret that feeling as something positive, sometimes as something negative. Sometimes the new thing is to be embraced, sometimes rejected. Sometimes we have both feeling at once. Either way, the 'I' in this picture is threatened with having to change if it says 'yes' to the other, be that other new food, a new piece of information, especially if it contradicts a piece of information we already have.
An infant comes into the world with a sense of self only developed to the point where it 'knows' it is not the bed of rocks it has had to lie on, Mom's spine. Maybe also, it's not the confines of the womb which won't allow it to stretch out fully. The birth and the massive job of identifying all the things it, the baby, is not. Not the bed it is lying on. Not the breast it is sucking on. Not the arms it is lying in comfortably. So much work to distinguish self from the world beyond its own skin. So much annoyance. Often so much rage and hatred.
The problem for adults may be more significant now in our times. Our primary identity these days is as individuals, not as members of a unified group. My 'group' is at least all of humanity, if not everything living thing, if not the inanimate objects of mother earth. The more extensive and more diverse the group, the more specific my individuality has to be. It may be too much for us. We weren't designed for this.
I don't know about eastern religions, but I think Jesus aimed for something greater than limited tribal identification. However, Christianity's doing so may be an accident. All religions teach moral behavior. Christianity is the only Abrahamic one that teaches ethical behavior to those not of our tribe.
The good Samaritan story indicted the Jews who passed by a member of their own tribe without offering aid. It may not have been intended to say, "See, members of all tribes have good people in it." And Paul's outreach to the gentiles, moving beyond the limits of his own tribe, may also be an accident. The Jews weren't interested in his version of the Messiah. They had something different in mind. Paul had to reach out beyond the limits of his original intended audience. I suppose you could say that God had a hand in all this, trying to tell us we had to reach out beyond our own small worlds.
I have good moments when I do a sterling job empathizing with the 'others.' I have also failed miserably.
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