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?

Neither this nor that - then what?

They say the left brain is all about logic, language, and math.

The right? Imagination, emotion, and the big picture.

One breaks the world into parts.

The other connects them into patterns.

Interestingly, those traits often show up in our politics.

People with a strong need for order, rules, and clear structure?

They tend to lean conservative — left-brained in style.

Those more open to ambiguity, empathy, and change?

They often lean liberal — right-brained in tone.

Of course, no one lives fully in one hemisphere.

Our brains aren’t silos — they’re symphonies.

But somewhere along the way, I think we took the left-right brain metaphor

and turned it into a society-wide identity war.

We chose a side — and sometimes forgot to keep the whole.

⚖️ Balance Isn’t Neutrality

People talk about being centrists these days.

Some mean it with integrity: “I listen to all sides.”

Fair enough.

But sometimes, “centrist” just means:

“I don’t want to take a side.”

It’s a position of avoidance, not balance.

Let’s be honest — there’s no such thing as a value-free center.

There’s no “centrist policy” that exists in a vacuum.

Every real-world stance — on speech, economy, justice, education —

emerges from values that lean somewhere.

The so-called “center” is often a place where values overlap,

not a magical realm of neutral truth.

The real question is not where you stand, but what you stand for — and why.

🔄 When Both Sides Make Sense

Some of my values lean right: I believe in discipline, responsibility, and the power of tradition when it’s rooted in love.

Some of my values lean left: I care about inclusion, dignity, and the right to challenge what no longer serves us.

And I know many people who live with that same inner tension —

not because they’re indecisive,

but because they’re honest.

They’ve stopped trying to “pick a side.”

Instead, they live in the middle of the dynamic —

grounded in values, not in tribes.

🚨 The Danger of Extremes

Take anything to an extreme and it collapses in on itself.

• Far left? You risk perversion — ideals without structure, boundaries erased in the name of progress.

• Far right? You risk intolerance — structure without empathy, purity enforced at the cost of peace.

Extremes operate like single hemispheres —

functioning without their other half.

But the brain doesn’t work well like that.

And neither does a human.

And neither does a democracy.

🧭 So Where’s the Real Center?

It’s not in between.

It’s beyond.

The real center isn’t the fence.

It’s the meeting point where clarity, conviction, and compassion live together.

It’s not neutrality — it’s integration.

It means asking:

“What value is alive in me right now — and how do I live it with integrity?”

That’s not a weak question. That’s a wise one.

It’s not indecision — it’s discernment.

🧩 In the End

I’m not left.

I’m not right.

I’m not center.

I’m an aspiring thinker with values.

I struggle to uphold them — daily.

I try to anchor in emotions and feelings,

to reclaim my mind from the grip of reactivity.

And I know I’m not alone.

There are many who walk ahead of me —

quiet giants of clarity and compassion.

I watch them with respect, not envy.

I tread forward — cautiously,

but with enthusiasm —

trying to expand my humanity

one value, one moment, one breath at a time.

Not just a dog story

She was ten.

The dog on the screen had just died.

Tears welled up in her eyes, and I sat beside her — silent, heavy-hearted — unsure if I should comfort her or just sit there in that small, unbearable honesty.

That was the moment I knew.

We would get a dog.

But this isn’t really about the dog.

It’s about her.

She still has a dog toy she’s kept in near-perfect condition since she was a baby.

She invents names for me — strange, funny, sometimes musical — each one somehow sweet. They make me laugh, disarm me, draw me closer to the person I forgot I could be.

She moves through the world with a quiet grace. She can turn down chocolates without a second thought. In public, she becomes my advisor, my mirror. She offers tips. And sometimes, with nothing but a glance — that corrective eye-whip — she resets my entire behavior.

I’ve heard it said that a daughter is God’s proof of love for a man.

Whether or not that’s universally true, I know it’s been true for me.

She climbed my shoulders before she could read properly, treating me like a mountain. She turned my back into her reading couch. She never asked permission — she just trusted I was safe. And that trust began transforming me.

She started asking for a puppy years ago. But we were planning to relocate, and I didn’t want to leave a pet behind with family. I also wasn’t sure I was ready. I’ve always loved dogs, but something from childhood — something I still can’t name — made me hesitant. I remember the dogs in my grandfather’s home, always tied up. I hated it, but I never spoke up. Maybe I didn’t have the courage. Maybe I absorbed that helplessness and carried it forward.

Only much later did I begin to make peace with that part of myself — starting with Joy, my friend’s enormous St. Bernard. That friendship cracked something open.

Still, when my daughter asked, I deflected with jokes. A robot dog, I said — no poop, no pee, no problem. But behind the humor was a reluctance I didn’t know how to confess.

And then came that scene on screen. Her tears. Her silence.

That’s when my hesitation ended.

Once we moved and settled, we brought home an incredible golden retriever pup.

From the first day, he softened the edges of our lives. He brought warmth and rhythm. And in one of those gestures that only a child makes without ceremony, she let me register him with AKC as his dad. That was her gift to me — not just the dog, but the role I would grow into.

Sometimes she implies that I love him more than I love her. But she’s wrong.

He came into our lives because of her.

She is the source.

Not everything I know about love or patience came from her — but much of what I’ve come to live more honestly did. The softness. The listening. The slowing down.

Not through instruction.

Through presence.

She didn’t demand change.

She inspired it.

Fatherhood, I’ve learned, isn’t about shaping someone else.

It’s about being shaped — slowly, silently — by someone who trusts you without conditions.

If it is true that a daughter is God’s proof of love for a man,

then I have been loved more deeply.