The Opposite of Love is Not Hate

Think about the one person in your life that has wronged you more than anyone. It might be an ex-lover, a boss, or even an ex-best friend. Do you feel angry? Hurt? Does that rage still live inside you, where just a photograph of them can instill a deep sense of resentment that you can’t let go of? 

What’s peculiar about opposites is that they go together. Black goes with White. We could not know black without its pair, white. Heads would have no distinguishing characteristics if there did not also exist its antecedent, tails. Up can only be evaluated from down. Looking at a game of chess or checkers, one can identify the importance of differentiation in relationship to meaning and value as it is the key strategy for both understanding and survival. 

Even how we determine speed of a moving object involves opposites. We need two points, not just one, to determine the rate of speed at which one object is moving which is always in relation to another. If there was but one object within the entire universe, speed and distance would not exist at all. Everything would simply just be. 

Death and Life also hold this very same Truth. If everything lived indefinitely and never changed, we could not comprehend death at all. But on the same note, we could not understand life either. How could I know that I was alive if I didn’t have something to compare it to? 

Think about the first time you were faced with death. For me it was my mother at the age of 19. One cannot comprehend the finality of life until they have had a personal connection with the loss of a loved one. Death is but an abstraction or concept, theoretically placed within the recesses of the psyche, until such time that one has the ability to reflect upon it. This generally does not arise until the truth is revealed. The death of a parent or child puts into clarity that you yourself will also die, where before it was only but a story.  

“Cogito, ergo sum.” - Descartes    “I think therefore I am.” 

If one could not imagine that there exists such a point whereby no thought could reside, then thought itself would hold no understanding. One could not even hold a sense of being itself if non-being was impossible. The light of a life could never be fully experienced or known if the darkness, that also resides within life, did not exist. 

We all know love, right? Who hasn’t been in love at one point in their life? This maybe the love of a parent or the love of a spouse. The friends that we surround ourselves with every day are those whom we love and share our lives with. They are the ones that know us the most intimately and bring us the most resounding joy imaginable. But we can also love those who inspire us. The Oprahs, Steve Jobs, Tony Robbins, George Washingtons, or Martin Luther King Jrs are the people that also open our hearts to love. 

I think it’s very powerful that Buddha and Jesus never fully defined what love is. They did not attempt to put a real label on it or try to box it into a set of perimeters outlining its feeling, emotions, and behaviors. Love itself is still a deep seeded mystery, yet every one of us know, from an experiential basis, that love is the most powerful driving force that can fulfill our lives beyond anything comprehendible. 

Love truly is the most powerful force within the known universe and it only resides within and between us. 

But so does hate. Hate is as natural a phenomenon as love and can be found within all humans. Both experiences have also been documented within the majority of the animal kingdom as well; particularly so with higher-thinking mammals. 

Think about our symbols of love. None of these symbols themselves actually feel love. They are but representations. The caricature heart and the rose never once experience love within themselves, yet you look at any text message chain between two individuals falling in love and you will find nothing but. We need and use these symbols to express that which we ever so struggle to put into words. 

Going back to the scorned lover, who is filled with rage and revenge, it would appear as if he is engaging in behaviors and feelings that are truly opposite of what was once expressed with cute emojis and butterfly kisses. How could anything appear so dichotomous yet at the same time still represent the same articulation of feeling and passion as that first kiss? 

It’s because love and hate are two sides of the same coin. They are only relative opposites rather than TRUE opposites. 

Let me explain further with the visualization of the raging river. Imagine walking into a river bed and the current is moving extremely fast. If you don’t hold onto something, you are going to be swept away downstream. So, you hold onto one of the sides of the river. From one perspective, you are attaching to the riverbank in the same way that you attach to your boyfriend. You hold on tight hoping never to be parted. This can be how love works in some respects. 

But when you attach to something, you always find the opposite present as well, resistance. You’re resisting the flow of life because you are attaching so strongly. You cannot attach without resistance because all opposites go together. 

So when you are angry with an old friend who hurt you, what you are truly doing is attaching along with resisting. When you perseverate your negative thoughts incessantly about how someone did you wrong, you’re not only resisting them, you are also holding on. And when you hold on so tightly to the things that hurt you in the past, they’re inevitably going to hurt you again. 

Have you ever played tug of war? Do you remember what your hands looked like afterwards? If the game was very intense, your hands are bloody, bruised, and filled with pain. That’s exactly what you are doing when you hate someone. You’re hurting yourself because you can’t let go. The same is also true if you hold on to too tightly to love without allowing the space for sheer presence and flow.

What happens when you do finally figure out how to let go? Go back into the river and let go of the riverbank. Let go of the rope. Let go of the hate. What you find is the TRUE opposite of both love and hate, detachment. 

This is not a detachment that is void of emotions or care, but rather a sense of peace and freedom. When you let go of the side of the river, you find that your energy is freed and that you can once again float along with the course of life. You are no longer standing in resistance to what is or what was. You are able to float upon the surface and appreciate the beautiful scenery as you drift off into the ocean. 

Detachment is the goal. Sometimes I have heard people describe the True opposite of Love and Hate as indifference, but it’s not that either. Because once you truly love someone, that love never goes away. Once you open the door of your heart and allow someone inside, they will always, in some way, occupy that space. What you do is allow them to be there without attachment and without resistance. That is the TRUE opposite of Love and Hate. 

Go along with the flow of life. Your attachment and your resistance towards it will only prevent you from being your true self and living fully. It will lead you nowhere but to a place of misery, pain, and exhaustion. 

People come into your life for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime. And the truly special ones are the ones that are there for all three. 

Never hate those who harmed you. Never hate those who did you wrong. It will only cause rope burn, drownings, and heartache.

Trust & Let Go

Christopher Pollock 

The Clinical Review 

(424) 330-8400

www.TheClinicalReview.com