By Peg Elliott Mayo
Columnist | Posted: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 12:00 am
Back in July, I wrote a cranky piece about the casual, cheapening use of the word "love." I objected to it being substituted for "like," "enjoy" or "appreciate." As in "I love fried potatoes."
My definition, for nonscholarly usage, is "Love: A powerful affinity, characterized by devotion, awareness, sacrifice, joy and connection."
A Faithful Reader responded with her disgust at the equally inexact overuse of "hate." A couple of examples are, "She hates green shoes" or "He hates tuna." Doubtful, in each case. More likely she dislikes those shoes and he is sickened by fish.
My definition: "Hate: An overwhelming repulsion, characterized by disgust, abhorrence, animosity and/or alienation."
The Bible says that God created the cosmos with a word. We, too, create our experiences with the words we use to describe them. This is more than a word-glutton argument.
Suppose someone describes the food in a restaurant as "nauseous" and says he hates the place. The finest chef on the planet could not persuade the speaker to enjoy having a nice Haggis pudding. According to the dictionary, haggis is "a Scottish dish consisting of a mixture of the minced heart, lungs and liver of a sheep or calf mixed with suet, onions, oatmeal, and seasonings and boiled in the stomach of the slaughtered animal." Repulsive, offensive or even an ethnic slur, it still doesn't really earn the word "hate."
If a woman describes herself as "blobby," she will behave blobbily and believe blobism is her hateful fate. Substitute "pleasant" and see what happens, inside. Words matter.
When we compromise our marvelous, fluent language to a one-word-fits-all model - "I hate/love motorcycles/
puppies/religious people/nonreligious people" - we carelessly smear meaning like grease on a windshield. Hence, we not only fail to communicate, we fail to refine what we actually feel.
A few synonyms for hate, according to Roget's New Millennium Thesaurus are: animosity, aversion, loathing, disgust, enmity, rancor, revulsion. This suggests we may be mobilized, active, in our outrage. In contrast, some may passively avoid confrontation with whatever is being discussed.
Hate and love are words that deserve to be reserved for powerful responses, not frittered on trivial things. Use the power of the word to communicate, not obscure meaning. What a concept! I dislike cashews. I am offended by show-off cars. I reject uplifting underwear. I delight in Celtic music. I appreciate sunrise. See the differences?
Many years ago, the psychologist Rollo May explored an interesting issue. Love and hate, he believed, were not opposites at all. The opposite of either is indifference.
Why? Love and hate take focus and are energy investments. Imagine having once loved a person who later did you wrong. The hurt and confusion may cause you to stop loving and start hating. On either side of the emotional balance scale, energy is invested. You're still involved. Once it was pleasurable, currently it is awful.
Time passes. Events occur. Affinity and/or abhorrence both fade, losing energy. The day comes when you hear that so-and-so has some hideous disease or has just won the lottery. If you, like Rhett Butler, can honestly say, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," then you're freed.
To be passionate is to have deep feeling and vitality for something: There is emotional commitment and, sometimes, obsession. To be passionate for life-affirming things such as civil rights, environmental protection, wholesome food for everyone and creative expression, is to apply your force to a chosen direction.
To be passionate for acquisition, dominance, elitism, superficialities is also to apply your life force in a chosen direction. Love or hate, indifference or engagement, how we describe our experience becomes our experience.
Peg Elliott Mayo is a mentor and author. She welcomes comment at uncommonideas
@rivervoices.com; or P.O. Box 542, Blodgett, OR 97326; or 456-2282.