No time for hate.

When I was young (age 4) one of my aunts was brutally raped and murdered and left under a porch in Roxbury. The next day a neighbor called the police to report this. The man who raped and murdered her was never identified. There was no trial. There was no closure. Decades of the question: “Who did this?” hovered over my family. (My hunch is that he died in jail sentenced for another crime.)
Here’s the thing, for whatever reason I have never hated the guy. Weird. I know.
And that probably sounds messed up but that’s the way it is. And I’ve thought about this over the years -- Why don’t I hate the man who killed my aunt? And in some ways I like that I don’t hate this guy because I’m not big on hating. (My hobbies include: eating, baking, cooking, brooding, reading, hiking, and such.)

My parents weren’t particularly friendly or loving -- to me, my brother, or each other. And for many years I was your run-of-the-mill self-centered, American, who consumed way too much of everything. As I got older I got a tiny bit wiser and I started to examine my actions/behavior and I wasn’t comfortable with who I had become so I set about changing that.

On September 12, 2001 – the day after I stood on 5th Avenue and watched the World Trade Centers collapse -- something in my mindset shifted. I refused to be afraid. (Not that I had ever been particularly fearful, I think I was more numb.) I refused to be depressed. (And I had spent many years very depressed.) I was really unhappy about what had happened – in particular that a lot of innocent people had been killed – but I took it as a wake up call.
Anger and hate can be catalysts of a sort but I don’t believe those emotions are sustainable. You probably won’t be able to remain angry or hateful for more than a couple of minutes at a time. And this is a good thing because if you were able to be hateful and angry for sustained periods of time you’d probably end up an extremely unhappy person.
I’ve been thinking about the kid who shot Representative Giffords and I’d like to be angry or hurt but instead I feel bad. And maybe a little bit powerless. But I’m taking this as another wake up call. And once again, I’m not going to give into fear. And once again, I figure the only thing I can control is myself. So yeah – it’s more vegetarianism, and public transportation, and looking to cause as little harm as possible.

I’ve been thinking about the ways in which a person could die: murder, disease, old age, accidentally, suicide.
And it’s occurred to me that I might actually have to reduce the emphasis I’ve placed on trying to have a happy-death and re-focus on having a deeper day-to-day life experience.
How can I live an honorable, valuable, interesting, fulfilling life?

The past couple of weeks I’ve been wondering about my writing. Now that I’m applying to Grad school I’ve had to think about writing not as art (something I do for myself, everyone can go hang) but as a way to earn a living (want to give me a chunk of change for that story? Thanks!). But that means that I’ve got to get published. And when I think about that and think about how fickle consumers can be I wonder if I’ll have the balls, the talent, and the luck to earn a living writing. But the funny thing is I can’t give up on it until I’ve given it a fair try. Seriously. If I’m not accepted to Grad school AND if I can’t earn money selling stories then I’ll give up.
Until then… life is a mixture of insomnia, visits to Good Beer, working behind the desk, writing, (writing some more) and refusing to hate.