Don’t Give in to Hate

In which I shamelessly reference two bits of geek culture, hell maybe even three.

I’ve got a lot fo thoughts and a lot of feels about what happened at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in the early hours of Sunday morning. But there’s just one part that I really want to share with everyone.

There’s a line in the Lord of the Rings films that I’ll paraphrase here (because Tolkein just loved having nothing but bearded white guys talking to each other) “What can people do against such reckless hate?”

You see, that’s the key word here, “reckless”. Hatred isn’t a straightforward controlable thing. It’s wild and dangerous. If you let it out you can’t stop it, it grows and builds and doesn’t pay heed to any rules. What happened on Sunday was the product of this recklessness.

There’s the old story of someone describing their feelings of love and hate as being like two wolves fighting in their belly. When asked which of them will win the narrator simple replies “The one that I feed.”

So with all the words that are being said right now, please just bear that in mind. Where are these words coming from? A place of love, or a place of hate? Because the most important thing you have to give right now isn’t money or thoughts or prayers, it’s time and attention, it’s the soil for ideas and feelings to grow, so please, whatever you do, don’t give in to the easy path, don’t let the seeds of hate and fear start to grow.

Whatever they offer you

Though they’re stuffing the trough for you

Please, whatever they offer you,

Don’t feed the plant,

DON’T FEED THE PLANT!