Great Hate

Difficult circumstances are remarkable in that they lay bare otherwise well-hidden aspects of our darker nature. We all certainly must hide things of which we're not proud or which scare us, which makes one wonder of some people what they're hiding if that's what they're showing. In any case, I know that I reveal to myself at least if to no one else a most unreasonable, judgmental and downright hateful side when I am late getting somewhere.

I am thinking of a time some months ago when I was hustling down into the subway station to catch the train. It was leaving imminently, and I found myself on the stairs behind a man not so far from my age who evidently had some manner of physical frailty to contend with. He was doing his best to hobble down before the train pulled away, I'm sure. In my mind I was playing the role of a profane horse trainer, cursing him out and exhorting him to move faster. Because I was at risk of being late meeting a friend, in that moment I hated the poor, innocent man. Of course missing the train had no consequences for me, and I was quite ashamed of my thoughts.

I remember the first time I felt like a local here. I was headed to a job interview in Hollywood, and found it necessary to walk down Hollywood Boulevard past Highland where the Chinese Theater is. It being summer, the streets were choked with tourist buses and the sidewalks with tourists. I was at risk of being late and was just a deadly volcano of hateful, violent emotions directed at the innocent tourists blocking my way while posing before the theater and with various street performers. We may now be suffering the consequences of instant communication via such means as twitter, but let's just be grateful that you can't do things to people with your mind in as speedy a fashion. I'd be in prison.

It's a funny thing that it's all the people around me that are worthy of hate at such times and not myself. Isn't it lucky that I don't ever find myself to be the appropriate target of hatred for being late in the first place? I know I'm glad for that to always be the case, no matter what I have done or not done in the time leading up to such cases. It's never me and always anyone but me, and I don't mind saying that I wouldn't have it any other way.