People cling to their hates so stubbornly
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
Somehow I had never heard this quote from James Baldwin before, but it says so much about the world we are living in.
Think about the screaming on social networks, the vanity of violence on the streets in some cities and the undertones that can be felt in a less polite world and it is possible that pain is behind it all.
We all know people who have changed in their lives, who have gone through hard times and come out the other side more angry and more likely to spout their beliefs in a more aggressive way. Some of us know people who cannot ever be wrong and whose insecurities are obvious in their every action, and again it is possible that emotional pain from either an early age or a powerful moment reside beside the rage that they cannot stop pushing out there.
The hate hides the pain because it is a similar emotion and it masks that inner feeling for a while longer, and I wonder if social networks are the perfect platform for helping those in pain to numb their feelings through public anger.