On Hate & Love

January 30, 2018

2685

The Roman poet Catullus who lived in the 1^st century BCE wrote one of the most famous short love poems. In Latin it goes like this:

“Odi et amo. quare id faciam fortasse requiris.

nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.'”

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And one of its translations is as follows:

“I hate and love. Why I do so, perhaps you ask./

I know not, but I feel it, and I am in torment.”

The poem was dedicated to Catullus’ lover Clodia Pulchra who was known with the literary pseudonym Lesbia (since she was also married…). The elegiac couplet begins with the antithesis odi et amo. In its brevity, it is considered as one of the most powerful fashions to express the contradiction of love emotions.

Hate & Love: the powers that inspired the Muses

The intertwinement of Hate and Love, of Pain and Love, is universally narrated and sung. We remind you the witty title of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost or the delicate verses of Samuel Daniel (retrieved from this site):

LOVE is a sickness full of woes,

All remedies refusing;

A plant that with most cutting grows,

Most barren with best using.

Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;

If not enjoy’d, it sighing cries–

Heigh ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,

A tempest everlasting;

And Jove hath made it of a kind

Not well, nor full of fasting.

Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;

If not enjoy’d, it sighing cries–

Heigh ho!

This has been beautifully rendered in music by Sonne Hagal, a German experimental and neofolk group:

The dark age of Love

And just listen to this incredible song below and take its amazing lyrics into consideration:

The language of love is the language of liars

The flames of all love become funeral pyres

Smoke gets in your eyes and grown men cry

I see young men led to an early

Grave and old men pray to die

The earth is full of ghosts now

Ghosts that sweat and ghosts that cry

Instead of peace just stop and cease

A final end, a sweet release.

Is it then Love destined (or cursed) to be bound with these strong emotions? Well, yes and no. While paternal love or friendships are of course freer of these passions, a romantic connection is plagued by jealousy and tensions.

Is Love evil?

The “celebrity philosopher” Slavoj Žižek has given a good explanation for that. Love is evil, in the sense that within the chaotic and undifferentiated universe we pick up one person and in this we assign the importance of the whole creation. Therefore, when our love is denied our failure to be loved in a similar fashion will turn love into hate. And this happens because we fail to become in turn the center of the universe of the beloved person.

It goes without saying that in all cases we cannot attain what we desire, we will also develop resentments. If we cannot have the beauty we are yearning for, we prefer it to be vanished or to humiliate it. But this is in fact a sick, purely egoistic condition. And it differs from this love-hate amalgam that may be inspiring, because it is an annihilating force.

These are emotions we should totally refrain from. Nevertheless, without the passions of Love we wouldn’t have the songs, the poetry the literature we acquired through the centuries. An interesting example is the novel of the Japanese author Yukio Mishima “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion” that depicts excellently the obsessive and destructive force of Love and Beauty.

Unfulfilled love definitely “sucks” but getting malevolent is what is actually evil. This should not happen.

The destructive power of Beauty

It would be rather fallacious for us to seek for a life in which we do not experience Hate and Love. The easiest way is to retreat and to block emotions to develop so that we will not get hurt or risk to live beyond the mundane life. Still, when feelings of hatred arise when we are involved in a love story, our goal should be that we overcome this negativity and grow stronger than that. This will help us in turn to strengthen the way we offer and receive love.

Grow stronger than hate

What should you do in order to control negative feelings towards a person you are attracted to?

Be the lover of yourself. Nobody is going to appreciate us if we do not respect ourselves. Being loved is a great confirmation for our ego. Yet, it is erroneous to expect that any other person will be able to love is more than we love our own selves. Self-esteem makes us more adorable and protects us from developing feelings of intense hate, which is a sign of weakness.
Accept your negative emotions. It is human to feel intense emotions concerning a person that sexually and emotionally appeals to us. Fighting against these feelings will just deteriorate your psychological condition. The key here is to channel the intensity of your negativity to positive thoughts. Since hate and love are woven together, negative energy can turn to positive one.
Accept a person the way it is. People will never change if we force them. We will only make them react against us. If you want things to change, you have to be patient and work with love, not violence.
Find an inspiring person to love. Otherwise, learn to leave. If a person is not willing to share beautiful moments with you it is futile to spend your energy and your emotions. Just step away and move on.
Become a seducer! Everybody likes a charming person. Take care of your body and your soul. Self-improvement will lead to greater positivity in love affairs.
Shine in magic! Here you can find several articles with great advises about how you can cloak yourself into positive Magic so that you master the art of Love and disperse any negativity around that blocks it.

Phaethon

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