If You Sow Hatred, You Will Reap Violence

The main effect of hatred is violence; only this can keep the hatred alive. Hate is like an uncontrollable appetite that never seems to get full. It consists of anger and rage and is always able to find a reason to stir even more hatred. Hate is without a doubt one of the most addictive passions that humans can experience.

Many people say that we ‘reap what we sow’. Usually this saying is applied to positive situations. In reality, of course, this saying can refer to both good and bad things. That is, if you sow love, chances are you will reap love. If, on the other hand, you sow hatred, chances are you will reap hatred or violence, with violence being even worse.

Hate spreads fast

When someone attacks someone else for whatever reason, it arouses a feeling of anger and sorrow in that other person. Aggression creates a wound that is difficult to heal, depending on the severity of the attack,  as well as your past experiences of aggression that have accumulated in your heart.

The more negative experiences, the bigger and deeper the wound will naturally be. Some people tend to remember negative memories better than positive memories. They tend to put more emphasis on the mistakes than on the successes.

Aggression is only one step away from hatred. A chain of aggression provides us with the conditions necessary for hatred to develop and settle in the heart. The connection that comes out of this disturbing feeling may be stronger than the connection that comes out of love. As a result, the aggression increases considerably, because there is always ‘an apple to pick’ .

Virtually nothing can justify violence

Violence will never lead to anything good. Generally it comes from cowardice or ignorance or both at once. It is a certain form of behavior that degrades and damages the human state of being, at least the ethical and social aspects of this state of mind.

Violence breeds even more violence. The consequences of violence are almost always the same: hatred, rage, and a significant drive for revenge. If you wish, you can create a futile and rigid vicious circle, as in the Sisyphos myth, although there are also exceptional situations where violence can be somewhat understood and sometimes may have to be applied in self-defense.

Yet violence remains very unstable when it comes to approval and justice. Violence should always be the last option, literally. Because the circumstances leave you no choice. The last possibility. Violence is only fair when it is used to defend another value, a value that is more important than the value of not using violence.

From hate to violence

Violence does not only consist of physical or verbal forms of aggression. There are plenty of acts of violence that don’t require you to utter a single word. Such as situations where someone can put someone else down with just one look or when you yourself are an accomplice to an injustice, purely out of convenience, because disapproving of it could cause you problems.

No matter how well these kinds of violence hide or disguise themselves, they always produce the same consequences. A series of deafening and resounding hostilities hidden in the throbbing wound. This creates a dramatic circle in which two people become firmly connected by a sickening feeling.

Almost everyone who uses violence seems convinced that he has the right to power. If this hatred were to be examined for years, this violence that could last for decades, you would find that all these people think that their aggression comes purely from justified self-defense.

They want to prevent others from hurting them, which means they get themselves ahead of the curve and hurt others before they can get hurt themselves. They want to be respected and then do everything they can to scare others in order to achieve their goal. They need peace and think they can get it by silencing those who hold a different opinion. If their behavior subsequently provokes aggression in others, they use this aggression to justify their own violence.

For example, why is it that when we tell a lie we plan everything perfectly and are almost always able to achieve our goal? And how come when we want to tell the truth we encounter all kinds of obstacles, rejections and doubts?

Breaking the circle of hatred and violence

Forgiveness can set you free. Rest is a condition to be happy. However, neither forgiving nor finding rest are actions that will come about automatically. Rather, they are actions that involve an important process, where you must be able to admit your own mistakes and failures to begin with.

The world needs strong and brave people who are not afraid to step back to avoid conflict. The world needs people who can keep quiet and wait quietly for the other person to calm down and be willing to have a productive dialogue. People who do their best to understand others before immediately judging, condemning and sometimes even punishing them.

Perhaps we all need brave, determined people who are willing to take risks and who are able to harvest the ‘bad habits’. We as humans are made to slowly meander into the hidden gardens of personal growth. An interesting way to resist the exaggerated levels of violence, tension and aggression that we have to live with these days and that keep us from taking off our blindfolds.