When I look around the world today, read the news, watch the newscasts, one word keeps flooding my mind…….hate.

When I say hate, I speak not of thoughtful anger or righteous indignation. Anyone who loves truth and justice, will sometimes become angry and indignant at what they see around them.  Remaining detached, is the only other avenue, and nothing gets solved in a world where we each live in our own cocoon. Walls are not the answer to the world’s woes.

We live in a world divided in half. We pick one side or the other, and cheer for our side, and hate the other. Life, is not a football game. Hate has consequences. It eats away at the fabric of society like a vat of acid. It is not uncommon for the side that we choose to hate, to be inhabited by our friends and relatives. The side we choose to support, is not always right, and the other is not always wrong. The truth is, if we really care about things the way we say we do, we would simply approve of what’s right, and oppose what’s wrong, regardless of which side it bolsters, and which side it condemns. If hate is wrong, and I contend that it is, then who the recipient of our hate is, is irrelevant.

Having an open mind, and having the willingness to support whoever is doing the right thing, is not the same thing as being weak in your convictions, and washing back and forth with whoever you are keeping company with today. The only thing as bad as hate, is being void of a true belief system. If your opinions are ready to be weakened or changed, in order to better serve your current needs, you are not the opposite of hate, you are either weak, or an opportunist. Being able to admit when your side is wrong, or the other side is right, is not the same as putting your convictions up for sale.

Knowing the difference between anger and hate, is….well, all about being an adult. There was a time when I sometimes hated. I decided life was better lived hateless (but sometimes angry), instead. The difference in hate and anger, can be felt deep down inside. You are consumed by hate, not anger. You can analyze why you’re angry. Logic is lost in hate.

So many people today hate public figures. Who did you really hurt when you hated President Bush? Do you really think President Obama, looses sleep because you hate him? Political popularity poles are a fact of life with politicians, but the opinions of individual citizens are never even realized by those people. The same is true for that driver who cut you off in traffic. He/she went home and slept like a baby, while you obsessed all night. Hate eats away at the hater, not the hated. Anger dissipates as you go on with your day, hate lingers and is always there to punish you and only you, but never the object of your hate. If you really think about, hate makes no sense at all.

I don’t think anybody would argue, that the world would be a better place, without hate. The only way to make hate extinct, is stop hating now. Each succeeding generation always learns from the last.

Have a great day. Stand up for what you believe and place your anger carefully and with forethought, and never, ever, hate.

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Photographically Speaking

As most of you know, Guy Tal is one of my favorite landscape photographers. He leans towards the abstract, and his vision is as clear and concise, as I have ever seen with any abstract artist.  His use of lines, shapes, color and light, is outstanding. It is an honor to bring you four of his images.

Most of Guy’s images appear to be “straight up” abstract interpretations of nature, like our first two images. He occasionally veers off that course in favor of manmade objects such as with our vertical composition, and on rare occasions adds a little digital flavor to a picture as seems to be the case with our final photo. No matter what, they are all captivating.

Have a great day,                                                                                                                           Wayne