The Thin Line Between Love And Hatred

LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVE

Love is a beautiful thing. To love and be loved is one of the best things that can happen to anyone in life. Over the years, I’ve learnt how to love people without any conditions attached. My simplest definition for love is, “an action word”. Love isn’t something we feel, it’s what we do based on the feeling we have towards another person. The word “Love” over the years has become one of the most abused words in the English language to the extent that it has lost its power and effect. When we have affection for someone, we show it by our actions not only by words, as said in Latin, "Facta Non Verba." The Bible tells us to Love our neighbours as ourselves. In other words, don’t do to another what you wouldn’t want someone to do to you. It sounds simple but not an easy task.

HATRED

Is hatred the absence of love? 
Or is it the presence of something opposite to love?
I find it difficult to understand why people can hate each other. I may hate a lot of things but never a fellow human being. I always try to find something positive in a person as a foundation not to drift to the other side of the “love-hatred” spectrum. Hatred isn’t strictly the absence of love, neither is it absolutely the presence of an antonym to love.

Hatred can simply be defined as a strong dislike for someone. It is when "dislike" outweighs "love".

If love and hatred were a spectrum, they will be at opposite ends. The less you love, the more you draw closer to the midpoint, then from the midpoint, you drift towards hatred. 

THE SPECTRUM

It is difficult to love everyone equally. We love some people more than others but at the end of the day, we love them all.
Like on the PH scale anything less than 7 is an acid but the closer you get to 1 the more acidic the substance.

They are all acids but some are more acidic than the others. In the same way, anyone in our lives, below “7” is a loved one but some may be 5 others 2 and that special number 1. 

With the same analogy, anyone above a "7" can be seen as people you dislike. The closer they get to 14 the greater the dislike.

So what about the mid way number 7? 

THE THIN LINE

The midline between love and hatred is what I call, Oblivion. 

Quick story; 

I used to be puzzled when people out of the blue start disliking someone they once loved. To me, they didn’t love the person in question in the first place because, it is not possible to love then later, hate the same person.
“It wasn’t true love.” I always told them.
It was until a similar incidence happened to me. The coin flipped quite easily, then I understood what my friends have been going through. Being a Christian, I have been taught to love everyone regardless of the condition for Christ's sake. It was difficult to hate someone,it took my peace of mind away. That’s what brought me to the midline, the thin line between love and hatred.
We’ve been taught to love, we’ve been told not to hate, how about staying on the fence? At one point in our lives, we find ourselves crossing the midline in both a positive and negative way.

We talk about love, we talk about hatred, what about the thin line that separates them.

I found myself indifferent about the person and oblivious of anything that surrounds them.
The thin line in between is the point you get to where you neither love nor hate the person. It’s like your love and hatred for the person cancels out so you’re just living in oblivion.  I find this place comforting because it gives me time to access the situation that led to falling out of love and try to make amends.

The world will be a beautiful place if we have some amount of love for everyone. Instead of having a spectrum of 1 to 14, why not try having 1 to 7 where everyone falls between love and oblivion. So that once you get acquainted, the person can easily move towards the left side of the spectrum. A spectrum of 1 to 7 means no room for hatred. It's all about love!

The scriptures says in the book of revelation that we should not walk away from our first love (Paraphrased). Our first love being God. He is the Author of Love. He first loved us.

Love alleviates all fears, racism, hatred and all negative emotions you can imagine.
Let’s love more, hate less and do unto others what we wish others do unto us.



🤩😍😘😚😙😗🤔😏😐😶🤨😡🤬

~George Asante