On Hatred: The Dental Argument

I talked before, in a blog about Anger, how all the negative things that happen in our lives, if not properly dealt with, become a hardened core in the soul, effectively killing the person inside. I've always said that the shooter that went into Columbine High in Colorado was dead long before he actually killed himself. He no longer had a soul, his heart was merely a hard core of anger.

Think of all the negative things that happen in a person's life as the bacteria that forms in the mouth. All the name calling, the insults, the gay slurs posted online, the yelling of parents late at night, all of this, becomes like germs floating around in the brain, in the blood stream. Most people are able to relax, to balance it out with positive influences. They listen to music, they spend time with those that they love, they worship in church, letting God ease those dark times. There are those, however, that let the germs fester, forming, to follow the metaphor, plaque around the teeth, blackening the enamel, hollowing out the insides, making the body a delicate, painful, brittle thing. The pain of a tooth that has been eaten away by plaque is unbearable (and I know from much experience). It's the same as the negativity that flows around in the soul. It becomes hardened, starts eating away at everything that is special and dear. Take the recent terrorists in Boston, they had promising careers, in medicine, sports, etc..., but were eaten away by all the negativity thrown at them from many different sources, not the least of which were the violent anti-American videos promoted by Muslim radicals. By the time they set those bombs at the Marathon, they were simply shells of that evil plaque. It is only by the grace of God that the younger one survived to allow us to know what was actually going on. It does show that maybe the younger brother still had a little soul left in him, something that might be salvageable  else he would have killed himself. (And I say that in total recognition that what he did with his brother was the act of pure evil, and he must receive the consequences of that. I only hope that he can be rescued, Saved (in the Christian sense of the word) before he dies or is executed. Only God can forgive him now.

Going back to evil as a germ, as bacteria, it is easily spread, from one person to another, by bullies at school, by the kids who throw gay slurs at nine year olds online, by anyone that hasn't washed those germs clean. And it's so important that we look out for it in our everyday lives. It's everywhere in society, and we don't even notice it sometimes. Go watch TMZ for an episode, or see the Reality TV shows where people stab each other in the back. Even the night talk shows, like Jay Leno, who insult Lindsay Lohan daily, are doing nothing but making that actress worse. The spiritual life and internal fortitude of those stars must be so strong to withstand the constant barrage of evil thrown at them every single day.

Go to Instagram, on the "popular" page, and pick out any picture of a person (a "selfie," they call it), and you'll see, among the useless cries of "I luv u!!!," girls who post "gay" or "go kill yourself." Then the supporters go after the "trolls," and a cursing war breaks out, all in front of children who don't need that in their lives. I've mentioned before Davis Cleveland, who withstood (and continues to deal with) a constant barrage of insults from people online. And while I know he's strong enough to ignore them and persue his dreams, I worry about the lingering effects of all this. So many child stars have grown up spiraling down into addictions, negative behavior, and some, even suicide (Jonathan Brandis, for instance), and many of them were stars well before the Internet. What effects will social media have on these actors as they mature and grow? The good part about Davis' life is that he has a solid Christian background, supportive parents, and friends both physical and online, that lift him up and provide that positive encouragement. I'm actually surprised in the many young actors now that are Christians, and I hope that God will carry them "through" the fires they face each day.

 

Anger Rethought

A long time ago I wrote a post on Anger, dealing with the play Equus by Peter Schaffer. In that, I said that anger was something that a person could own, it was the result of the culmination of experiences that he or she had during life. And that anger, while it could be suppressed, controlled, even eliminated through the help of religion, physcology, and drugs, is not something that should be altogether gotten rid of. There is a purpose behind that anger, a passion that one must feel in order to live life, to have the power to change things, to make things better for the people living around them.

But now, I wonder, is there not another type of anger that has developed within the youths' psyche today that has nothing to do with the experiences that they have gone through? Certainly the loss of innocence, at such an early age, would produce a certain amount of dissatisfaction in a life. The loss of beliefs once held as dear to a child, like the loss of Santa, or the realization that their parents aren't perfect, would create some sore feelings. But I wonder, how much of those feelings are expressed in the music, art, fashion of today's youths? I hear the lyrics of today's hip-hop and heavy metal bands, and I wonder at the unchecked anger that comes from them. Where does that anger come from, and is it something that is truly felt, or is it something that is portrayed as a vehicle to sell music. When does it become anger for anger's sake? I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. While I can relate the Goth movement back to certain feelings of anger and passion that have been taken up by people as far back as literature and art can show us, I do not understand the overwhelming negativity that is portrayed by those people. I do know that even today's youth, who are certainly not children anymore (see previous blogs), have the experiences necessary to feel quite a bit of pain and anger at the world. But is that perception of the world captured by a movement that seeks to profit off of it? Is Hot Topics formed because of the desire to rebel against the society of their parents (which is ironic because the conservative, capitalist parents are actually handing down their ideas to their children, who are using them to profit using the very free-wheeling rebellion that is against that idea.) For instance, System of a Down (a rock band) has an album that basically calls for the public to steal it (in reference to the P2P revolution currently taking place.) The rebellion that the album title calls for is ironic because System of a Down, who by all accounts is against the current system, relies on it for profit and continuance of their craft.

But back to the personal side of this. When the enhancement of those rebellious feelings is caused by free enterprise, the effect is often enhanced on a psychological level. Feelings of hatred, mistrust of authority figures, and missing opportunities of advancement given to youth by those authority figures, are all negative symptoms of a basic fight for independence that has been taken in recent times to a more extreme rebellion than in the olden times, when kids ran away to join the circus. When those rebellious feelings destroy the potential in a person, keeping them from becoming the person that they were meant to be, then we have a most definite problem. Someone who likes Goth, and wears black and grows their hair out long, but still is able to harness the potential and opportunities that society gives them, that can use that sense of independence to further their own being, should be commended in being able to preserve uniqueness while still taking advantage of society. But the forces that would tear an individual apart, whether it be from some supernatural, religious being, or from the Consumerist society that can benefit from such self-destruction, do not make it easy for a teenager, with the sudden freedom and power that they have, to take advantage of society in this manner. Most of the time, they are sucked into the emotions that they feel, and the potential that is there is wiped away. I feel sad for those people, and will work hard to see that the people that I care about do not follow down those roads. Anger should be owned and harnessed, but not be the owner and the destroyer.

Anger

First off, I'm not going to say much about the Virginia Tech incident, since most everyone else has already mentioned it, and I think it's clear that it had the same effect on everyone, from college students who remember their own dorm lives, to American citizens in general. There is, however, one thing to be said. In all the news reports I've seen over the past couple of days, only one anchor has expressed the same feelings I have had over the past little bit. Glenn Beck showed how superficial the media is being about the whole thing, how they try to make you emotional over the thing, only so you can watch more, so that the people who are making money off of advertisements can continue making money. He talked about the real emotions that all of us felt after Columbine, and 9/11, but now not so much after this, since we've all become desensitized to violence over the years. It doesn't shock us anymore. Not much shocks me, anymore.

But one thing I do want to talk about is the individual emotion that caused all this. Anger. Anger is plaque that forms around the heart and slowly eats away at it, until there's nothing left but anger beating blood through the body. The killer was dead long before he killed himself. It's the worse emotion that you can feel, because it only feeds on the injustices in this world, but at the same time, making you incapable of doing anything about them. You suppress it down and it festers there, like some cancer, until there's nothing left but that anger. I had that, many years ago, but unlike many people, I have worked it free and dissolved it, because the only way of getting rid of it is by becoming friends with people, by caring about others, and by loving them. And so many people nowadays, even ones with relationships and whatnot, aren't truly letting go of that anger.

The reason I chose to write about this is that I see way too much anger as I go through my life. At work, in the people my brother deals with everyday, in the people that create the songs and the TV shows that influence everyone. Anger is there. And it doesn't have to. Sure, everyone can be frustrated. I'm frustrated everyday, about something I can't get done, or because of the differences of opinions between me and my co-workers, or whatever. But frustration is simply the liquid form of anger. It's dissoluble, it's easy to get rid of. And you dissolve it by caring, by feeling love and being around people you care about. Negativity is neutralized by Positive emotions. And all this sounds so self-helpish and superficial. But it's not, since it's validated by the philosophies I ascribe to. From Christianity to Aristotle's ideas, from William Blake to Henry David Thoreau, the path through anger, cynicism, and frustration is shown by "loving your neighbors as yourself." Frankly, it's hard to do, because the only way to get through an Anger-affected heart is to try and become their friend, through understanding and forgiveness, and it's so hard to do. But we have to try. It's what we're all here for. If we can't do something positive to affect the lives of the people around us, then we have no purpose. Anyway, my opinion on all this is that we have to take the hateful words that spew out of the killer's anger-hardened heart, and irradiate the same feelings in our own bodies. We don't want to become like him. I hope that this situation is a cathartic one for all of us. I hope so, I really do.