Monday, September 30, 2013
Good afternoon:
Tzar said something in a comment that inspired me to write this post.
He said,
Hi I am Tzar and I carry hate and contempt in my heart.
I do so because there are -and more importantly, there probably always will be- people and notions in this world that are the reason of why we can’t have nice things. I do so because because there people and notions in this world that we ought to fear and people and notions that we are to hold in disrespect. I do so because it defines the limits of what I find beautiful, what I love, what I find tolerable and insignificant.
I respect my hate and I delight in my contempt because they are very small and sharply defined and because they make me me. Woe unto one who finds themselves in that little box, because it is hard to get in and equally hard to get out (bullies, child abusers and spreaders of hate and disorder are lifetime members).
If I am at risk to be consumed, it is by my love and awe. If I am at risk to be obsessed it is through the task of diminishing yet always maintaining my hate.
I think of hatred as an intense and compulsive form of anger that overwhelms my circuits compromising my ability to perceive what is happening in my environment and to interpret the sensory information in an objective manner. We have learned from observing Trayvon’s case, for example, that bias and prejudice compromise perception. People tend to see what they expect to see or want to see. For this reason, we must be ever aware of the danger of failing to see something in plain view and misinterpreting our environment.
When I hate, I am not living in the moment. I am more likely to make decisions based on assumptions rather than evidence. Hatred impairs judgment, in other words.
I realized long ago that I had to figure out how to manage my emotions, if I was going to be an effective trial lawyer. By managing emotions I do not mean suppressing them. Suppressing emotions is unhealthy because it requires considerable energy and it deadens us to experiencing life.
Emotions come and go relatively quickly and an effective way to manage them is to develop the ability to change mental focus.
Baba Ram Dass emphasized the importance of being in the moment when he advised people to “be here now.” I agree.
If we are focused in the moment, we are plugged-in to our senses and less likely to miss something important like an approaching train.
Tzar believes some things like racism deserve to be hated. I agree in the sense that some beliefs and actions merit universal condemnation. Racism is one of those things.
I choose not to hate racism or a racist because I already condemn them. Hating them does not make them go away. Hating only hurts me by dissipating my energy and clouding my focus.
Hating is what racists do and I condemn them because they do that.
I do not want to be like them.
I believe some people misunderstood what I meant regarding Shellie Zimmerman. I did not intend to minimize what she said or did. I agree that her behavior protecting her husband, lying to the court about his assets at the bond hearing, and her participation in the devious scheme to falsely claim that Tracy Martin threatened someone in the Zimmerman family in order to persuade Judge Nelson to exclude Tracy Martin from the courtroom was wrong and reprehensible. I also suspect that she is racist and her chuckle regarding her husband’s comment about wearing a hoodie when he was released from jail was particularly insensitive and offensive.
No one should assume that I have approved of anything she said or did before she decided to divorce her husband. I have stated that her public statements and conduct in the case are consistent with the behavior of an abused and battered spouse. I also said that actions speak louder than words, so I am reserving judgment about her until we see what she does.
After reviewing my statements this weekend about Shellie, I realize that I did not clearly express myself. Therefore, I apologize for the confusion that I caused.
Finally, I still believe that she is a minor character in this tragedy. I said and still believe that the tone of many comments rejecting the possibility that she was a battered spouse was insensitive and disrespectful of the comments and feelings of many of our readers who have recently admitted that they were abused. I wanted that to stop.
Again, I thank Tzar for his thoughtful comment that inspired me to write this article.
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