I was thinking yesterday about a term I hear proliferating these days. As is usually the case, it started with young people and now seems to be spreading to everyone. I hear it on TV, see it on social networks, and recently have heard it more and more in my daily life. The word is “hater”.
We often forget the power of words to shape our lives and our paradigms of the world. Subconsciously, we are all well-schooled in the real meaning of the word hate. When we use hate in this voguish, casual manner, it still carries that meaning.
The subconscious message is that if you disagree with me, you’re a hater. How are we conditioned in our society to deal with people who hate us? Well, of course, we hate them back. When I transform disagreement or even a matter of taste or choice into hate, I am creating a more divisive tone to my world. Remember that much of what you create in your mind, you see in your world. If I create this idea that I live in a world of “haters”, that is what I am going to experience. Living in that world separates me from other people and creates a “me vs. them” mentality.
You can see this mindset proliferating in the “reality TV” genre now so prevalent in our media culture. Ego-driven, finger-pointing, body bumping arguments with your “haters” may make good TV, but they create a paradigm that is awful for society. When people see this behavior repeatedly, they begin to see it as the norm. Our herd instinct causes us to begin modeling it in our lives, unless we are very conscious. This is an incredibly unproductive, unhealthy mindset, and comes with a lot of dis-ease and dysfunction. Words do have power.
Look, I’m a writer and I appreciate and support the free use of language and even trendy language to communicate. I just think we need to be careful of the images we create of the world with our words. They have real impact in shaping who we are and how we see the world.
What do you think?
Have a beautiful day. Stay inspired!
Ray
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