Elif Shafak on The Three Roots of Hate and How to Become a Star Student of Life – The Marginalian
Written by Maria Popova
To have a strong feeling about anything to find something about the poles of your mind, some powerful reason to charge cannot touch that which strengthens life with a force that you do not fully understand at the moment that you cannot and often do not want to extinguish.
We learn a lot about ourselves and the gaps in our self-awareness through love, but we can learn a lot about hate. In both cases, the biggest question and the biggest test of character is what we do with what we learn.
In a passage from his absolutely wonderful novel There are Rivers in the Sky (public library), Turkish writer Elif Shafak provides a taxonomy of hate motives:
Hate is poison that is fed three cups. First is when people despise those they desire – because they want to be with them. It's all over! The second is when people hate those they don't understand. All because of fear! Then there is the third type – when people hate those who have hurt them.
For me, beating under all these three is the same thing that creates our problems with love—not knowing ourselves: hating others for what we don't understand about ourselves, hurting others for what we don't understand about ourselves and hating them for it. But there is a way to channel our electric passions with courage and curiosity, a way to probe the sadness and longing that lies beneath them, which can transform them into learning tools for living an authentic, gracious life.
Shafak says:
This world is a school and we are its students. Each of us learns something as we go. Some people learn love, kindness. Some, I fear, abuse and cruelty. But the best students are those who find generosity and compassion in the face of hardship and cruelty. Those who choose not to impose their suffering on others. And what you learn is what you take to your grave.
Couple that with poet Jane Hirshfield's beautiful title “A Spell to Say Against Hate,” and revisit George Saunders on how to love the world more.
