Tribes of Hate

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Tribes of Hate

The newer, more acceptable version of hate culture.

· compassion,tolerance,non-judgment,meditation,hate

Hate has changed. It doesn't look like it used to. And it's wholly accepted in its current form. This is what hate used to look like:

Tribes or gangs band together, perhaps with internal loyalties, but cold or indifferent to those who don't walk, dress, talk, or THINK like they do. It was dangerous to be around them and not part of them. 

Hate was easy to identify. Some gangs carried guns, bats, or chains, wore baggy clothes and hoodies. Others wore expensive suits and went to Ivy leagues. It discriminated. It segregated. But gang members were honest about one thing - where their loyalties lied. 

This is what hate looks like today:

It looks like isolation and powerlessness. It looks like anger on a page with likes and comments below it. We'd all like to believe we're noble and fighting the good fight, more well informed and discerning than those who don't bear the same affinities as us.

We're lying to ourselves. We're part of the problem.

It's easy to hate once we label. Once we label we have concrete lines, good or bad, us or them. But this is lazy and divisive thinking, and it creates in us hearts of darkness and tribes of hate. 

One might say:
The path of Christianity is forgiveness.
The path of Buddhism compassion.
And the path of Weightlessness non-judgmental awareness. 

A country is formed of communities. And communities people. What do we have left if those people and the tribes they identify with are only forgiving, compassionate, and non-judgmental when it's convenient, when it applies only to their tribes?

What do to when YOUR tribe has your back during inconvenient times, and supports you to breach your deepest values simply because you identify with the same group?
It's ok...they're not like us...treat em however. 

I think the challenge for many of us, myself very much included, is how do we keep from losing sight of our values when situational complexity exceeds our capacity to apply our values conveniently? Which is often...

That's a great time to ask the hard question...what does value X mean in this particular case? Life is full of contradictions, and more often than not the hard path bears the most personal growth. If you can't apply your values when it's hard, are they really your values?

Some Weightlessness veterans have described the path of Weightlessness as one of discipline and integrity. The thing about integrity is, it is NEVER convenient. It's never convenient to do what you say you'll do and act in accordance with your values. It's never easy to follow through on commitments. If it is, you're playing a weak game of life with a stacked deck of cards. You're not trying. And you're likely deluding yourself. 

We spent the last two weeks looking at meditation, first to show up to it, and second to create a sense of urgency within practice. None of this matters if after an awesome moment of presence you login to facebook and embrace the hate. 

Fuck the hate. 

I ain't there fully myself...but I'm working on it. And if you're reading this you're likely working on it to. We are all justified in sharing hard data that reflects inequity and suffering in the world and within our communities. We are justified to care and to enact policy that makes lives better. It's even ok to focus more on your tribe than others, so long as you're trying to affect positive change. This is important work.

But we need to work even harder on ourselves - to see the people behind the actions, and to not conflate anecdotal evidence with hard objective data. This is how personal frustration and hate becomes institutional and systemic. We need to own that on an individual, personal level. That ain't nobodies fault but ours. 

And hey, if you're about hate, do yo thang. I got plenty of work to do on myself. But stick around. We still love ya.

And be weightless.

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