Dissolving Hate - The First Step!

By Citizen KK

What did I come with?

What do I go with?

Who am I?

These questions may sound cliché because of the superficial way they’re often thrown around. That very superficiality affects our emotions—we tend to dismiss or even feel repulsed by people who toss these questions casually into conversation.

Yet they remain profound—for a willing soul who dares to go beyond attachments and prejudices, who is open to questioning itself and being questioned by others.

Long ago, we believed the world was flat.

Now we don’t—not because each of us has flown high enough to see the Earth’s curve, but because we trust scientific methods, instruments, and the data they reveal.

We accept that the Earth rotates at great speed, even though we don’t feel it—because everything moves with us in seamless motion.

And then there’s gravity. The mystery that keeps us grounded.

These fun facts may not be essential for day-to-day survival.

But some truths are:

Do no harm.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

We don’t know when we’ll leave this Earth.

We don’t know when death will come.

But we do know, deeply and immediately, what it means to be harmed—and to harm.

What it means to be treated with kindness—and to be kind.

Yet we fail to learn that lesson.

What does any group of people want?

Any race, religion, or political ideology?

Survival. Growth. Freedom.

Essentially—isn’t it?

Aside from a small fraction of humanity struggling with deep psychological distress, don’t we all share these basic longings?

We simply believe that our way—our method, our ideology—best serves those values.

And then comes the dangerous whisper:

“If I can make the world like me, then I will be safe.

If I get what I want, then I will be okay.”

Such beliefs—buried under layers of social custom and denial—become seeds of hate.

Our emotional intolerance to unmet expectations nurtures those seeds as we grow.

People begin to feel that others must be converted—or eliminated—for their own safety.

WE ENJOY THE FRUITS OF DIVERSITY WHEN THEY ENTERTAIN OR BENEFIT US

But when those same differences challenge our wants—or our egos—hell breaks loose.

Why?

Why is it so easy to convince ourselves that our survival is at stake—so much so that another’s existence becomes a threat?

Sometimes, it’s true.

Sometimes, the other is dangerous.

But even then—

What is the approach that excludes annihilation?

What becomes possible when we refuse to destroy?

Who am I?

Who are we?

As long as we define ourselves solely by the body—or the image we’ve constructed—it’s impossible to reach escape velocity from the gravity of hate.

As long as we let the mind confuse our wants with needs, we remain trapped.

Need ≠ Want

Need is about the body’s survival.

But our minds exaggerate emotion—especially fear—and tell us we “need” things that are simply wants.

And when we don’t get those wants, the frustration curdles into hate.

With modern metaphors, it becomes easier to see that the body and mind are not who we truly are.

Think of a motor: when there’s no electricity, it doesn’t function. The mind is like the spinning mechanism of the motor—active, noisy, purposeful. The body is the physical casing that houses it.

But it’s life, like electricity, that animates both.

When life leaves the body, the mind ceases to function.

The mind depends on the body as its medium.

So then—is life the real self?

It’s easy to see that we are not our bodies—they grow, change, and decay.

The same is true of our minds—they evolve, distort, and fluctuate.

Truth is simple.

But to live that truth, while resisting the seductive, cunning voices of the mind - that’s not so simple.

We’ve trained our minds to protect comfort at all costs.

To shield the fragile identities we’ve built.

And in doing so, we’ve made it hard to live with openness, with ease, with love.

But here’s the good news:

Merely acknowledging that we have this struggle… is the definitive first step.

Shall we take it together?