Human Ignorance

Written by Odimegwu Onwumere, a journalist from Rivers State, Nigeria. Please read the article and leave your thoughts below.

Human nature is characterised by insecurity. We are always distressed, wishing we could change certain things. Everyone has this feeling no matter how high or low our position is. It is therefore important for us to understand that hate and love are parts of psychological emotions we experience on a day-to-day basis. Fear, stress, jealousy, self-pity, and anxiety are part of these psychological emotions. Each are exhibited depending on one’s cognitive structuring. Conversely, we are bound to control emotions impacting our lives as individuals. With the right knowledge, it is immoral to dispense hate where love should be supreme; albeit none of this works 100% of the time. We only improve our chances dramatically in hating or loving each other. Therefore, we cannot generalise that we love 100% or hate 100%. But it is not true that hate attracts hate.

Love and hate are basic human effects. As individuals, we practice the two effects consciously or unconsciously. In a complex manner, love and hate are related. The absence of love does not translate to hate. And the absence of hate, does not translate to love. A feeling of love may be foremost in the presence of betrayal. A feeling of hate may be overriding in the presence of loyalty. We cannot eschew the fact that compatibility, rather than accompaniment, contributes to a large extent to the role of attraction. Commonalities in behaviour additionally donate to shared attraction.

What we call hate, when relationships break down, is the fear of trusting again. This is an emotional challenge and does not clinically translate to absolute hate. We all have open and closed minds. As kids, we had free and open minds. But as adults, we are mature and understand that the world is not a place for a tea party; we begin to protect ourselves. We begin to reconstruct the wall around our hearts. We become convinced of what we want in our lives and what we do not want. We even nurse some negative feelings about ourselves and in most cases, we believe that we are responsible for whatever that come our paths.

When we are betrayed, the commensuration of feeling that ensues might not really be a feeling of hate against the person or those that hurt us. Our action might be protective measures while we strive for personal growth, protecting ourselves from reoccurrence of the past hurt. We build walls to enable us build up and not really hating our offenders. It is the fear of vulnerability that many of us hate. The fear of vulnerability might cause pains to others, but it is crucial this is not tailored towards hate. We often say that once beaten, twice shy. When we are once hurt, we build up protective measures to curtail reoccurrence.

It is of the essence to say that we don’t hate a person but the situation. The later is what we misconstrue as hating a person. We feel bad, not hate, when someone we are emotionally dependent on betrays us, whereas we desired complete acceptance of our love and fondness. Our big problem is our different emotional reactions. This brings us to diversity in our different cultures. There are no two individuals with the same physical, mental, emotional and spiritual attributes. It is human ignorance that leads to jealousy, greed and other vices. We attach excessively to pride, ambitions, zeal, fear of safety, self esteem and so forth. Until we disabuse our minds through self-knowledge and discipline, we will continue to worry over the full attention we seek for that is not readily available. Until we disabuse our minds through self-knowledge and discipline, we will continue to worry over what we cannot change. Until we disabuse our minds through self-knowledge and discipline, we will continue to beat our emotions thinking that truly, hate attracts hate. It is human ignorance to think that hate begets hate.

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