Karin Bartsch's Journals

Observing other peoples relationships let me come to realize that the bridge in between love and hate seems to be very narrow. Why?

The basic emotions like fear and anxiety are deeply imbedded in the limbic brain system, any other emotion seems to be controllable by us.

Since good and evil seem to like their company, so do love and hate. Maybe it is all in the words?? Do people say  "I love you"  or  "I hate you" and don't even know what those emotions really are?

I never really hated anyone, I was disgusted with certain people, I tried to avoid seeing those or meeting those. With me empathy sets in easily. Instead of hating I feel sorry for them. And I forgive easily. So I am no expert at this topic.

Is anyone of you able to shine some light on this? It is to find within the Yin/Yang concept, the law of opposites? 

I somehow hated  my father all my adult life, because I was always the black sheep in the family. I suppose  i was  my fathers  "lightning rod."At his funeral when I had to put his ashes into the Delaware River I was the only one that was crying............

I know, our relatives looked at you strangely, thinking why the heck is he crying because they all knew that your father treated you like dirt sometimes. But you were very sad because it was your 90 year old father's ashes - no matter what - you are a forgiving character, as I am, and I love you for that! Your tears are easy to come because you are very sensitive underneath a thick skin.   

Yes, love and hate run a thin line together.  I do not like my father for a number of reasons, but when my grandmother died over Christmas and he had no tears I looked on and felt sorry for him.  It was almost as if he had no soul or any emotions to go along with it.  We do not speak very often because I, like you Karin, try to avoid someone that I dislike at all costs.  Yet I know that one day he will pass away and that thought brings me to tears.

Karin, I will be back to share my opinion later...I have to think about this for a while :-)

Dieter...my guess is that you cried for all of the things that could have been--that should have been...but never were.

It leaves us brokenhearted to think that  a parent can single us and treat us differently, any other way than loving.  And I guess that of all things quintessentially human, hope lives witin us all of our lives, and in the case of your father while he yet lived, and Kimi's father and my mother even now, we hope that they will open their eyes, their minds, their hearts...or whatever it is that once closed, and made them push us away and treat us badly.

Willow, I guess you are right with your thought about Dieter's father. He was never thankful, grateful. I never heard him saying Thank you, always complaining. Of course, I was also not the right choice in his eyes as a daughter-in-law. But I was there when he died, he died in my arms, Dieter and his mother standing also next to the bed.

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin.

As we all are aware of the fact that love is way better than hate, we need to manage and control our hate. Hate and anger are closely associated with each other. Prolonged anger results in hate. When I get very disgusted with someone or something, prompting me to hate, I try to tone down to 'dislike' very soon. Hate is the extreme form while 'dislike' is the mild form. It helps correct the ways of the hated person as well. Later on with that, the person becomes a reformed one. And my relations remain intact. And within a certain period of time, hate gets converted to love and the foe becomes a friend or a well wisher.

Hitler started ethnic cleansing of the cerebral Jewish people because he hated them. Had he instead loved them, his countries economic progress would been boosted up. But the Americans showed them love. The Jewish people in turn worked for America which resulted in fast and unprecedented progress of science,  technology, engineering, economy, etc  in the United States and contributing to America to become the numero uno.

However, as usual, in the complex love and hate chemistry, exceptions to the rules will always be there.