Unorthodox love.

Have you ever loved someone or something so much that you couldn’t live without it? I’ve recently discovered that, among other things like my immediate family, a few close friends and sports, there is something I love deeply and I would not be able to function without it. Hate. That’s right, I love hate. I cannot live without hate. I need hate – and so do you. We all hate to admit it, but we all love to hate. It’s the vehicle that keeps us moving forward. Hate, as much as you don’t want to believe it, is just as important to our lives as love is.

Let me go back to one of my earlier sentences: We all hate to admit it, but we all love to hate. This statement is essential to illustrating my argument, my argument being that love and hate are equally as important in our lives because they are one and the same. Love equals hate as far as I’m concerned, so in order for me to live a balanced life, I need to hate as much as I need to love. I need to be hated as much as I need to be loved, and I’m going to search for that one person I’ll spend the rest of my life hating as much as I search for that one girl I’ll eventually end up loving for the remainder of my life. Why do I need hate you ask? I need hate for two reasons.

Reason one: Hate fuels passion.

If you’ve been following my blogs up until this point you know that I’m very passionate about the idea of sport. I am not me if I don’t have sports just like Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn’t be the face of the Civil Rights Movement if African Americans weren’t marginalized for a couple centuries or just like Don Magic Juan wouldn’t be a famous pimp if there were no hoes. We, Me MLK and the Don, are all the same, we don’t exist if our passions don’t exist. I understand that there may only be a few thousand people who know my name, but I’m every bit as passionate about the Raiders play on Sundays as Dr. King was about equal rights for all American citizens or as passionate as Don Juan is about getting his money. What does passion have to do with love and hate? How about everything?

As much as I love the Raiders, I hate the Denver Broncos more than I’ll ever love the Raiders. The same goes for me hating the Utah Jazz more than I’ll ever love the Lakers, hating the Los Angeles Dodgers more than I’ll ever love the Giants, hating UCLA more than I’ll ever love USC and hating Duke more than I’ll ever love the University of North Carolina. My hatred for those teams is the fuel for the passion I have for my favorite teams, and in reality, I would have no reason to root for the good (my favorite teams) if there is no evil (the teams I hate). What good is a sport if no one chooses a side? If there is no sense of allegiance, no sense of loyalty, if there is no hatred, sports entertainment wouldn’t captivate the minds and hearts of hundreds of millions of people across the world – if there is no hatred, there is no love.

The same can be applied to every thing in life. I really don’t realize how much I love hip hop until I realize how much I hate country music. I don’t realize how much I love Nas until I listen to Chingy. Martin Luther King doesn’t realize that he loves to fight for people until he realizes that he hates the way his people are being treated. Don Magic Juan doesn’t realize that he loves pimping until he realizes that he hates working at Carl’s Jr. We all have the things we’re passionate about , and we all have those things that we absolutely hate that just makes our passions for the things we love stronger. The things we hate strengthen our loves. Hate strengthens love as much as love does. Hate equals love.

Reason two: We cannot exist without passion

As mentioned before, we don’t exist without our passions. I feel like passion is as essential to human existence as bread and water is. Passion is substance for the soul, and that is just as important to living as substance for the body, and substance for the mind. Without food, knowledge and passion, we are not living, and I strongly believe that. Without basketball, I would not be living, just like Quincy Jones would not be living without music and Nelson Mandela would not be living if people weren’t being treated like shit – as terrible as that may seem – and this is why we need hate. Love is one of man’s biggest passions. A lot of our decisions are made because of love; however, there is no love if there is no hate because they are in and of themselves. They are reciprocal. If you multiplied one divided by love and hate, it would equal one. Love is not whole without hate, and this will remain the reason why we will forever hate to admit that we love to hate. I think we have a problem associating these two polar opposites with each other. Not me though, I’ll forever embrace my love for hating, it keeps me loving, and what’s life without love?

Stay Hideous
-PB

(Word Count to date: 28,515
74 days and 71,485 words to go)