Jay Gilbertson's Blog

Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mary Oliver
(1935-2019)
Bestselling Poet, Winner of the National Book Award & The Pulitzer Prize

“Poetry isn’t a profession, it’s a way of life. It’s an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.”

The main theme the late Oliver shares is her abiding love and deep regard for the natural world. It is the fabric she prefers to lay her words on and wrap them up in and where she always found not only peace, but understanding of the importance of taking time to truly smell, touch and honor the earth. Though she has penned hundreds of poems, here are a few that I found especially notable. She also wrote many nature-themed essays but gave very few interviews feeling that her work could speak for itself.
She was a New York Times bestselling poet with a wise and generous wisdom and an intimate respect for the world not of our making. Here are a few examples of her work;

Mornings At Blackwater
For years, every morning, I drank
From Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
The feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.

Praying
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Three Things To Remember
As long as you’re dancing, you can
break the rules.
Sometimes breaking the rules is just
extending the rules.

Sometimes there are no rules.

For many, poetry has to rhyme, for others it has to adhere to a particular structure or have a certain word count and the variety of forms have accumulated over time. For Mary Oliver it had to express her observations of the natural world and perhaps she said it best, “When you write a poem, you write it for anybody and everybody.”

• Poetry tells a story
• What’s your poem?

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Schadenfreude: The Joy of Another’s Misfortune by Tiffany Watt Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Schadenfreude

The Joy Of Another’s Misfortune

By Tiffany Watt Smith

Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson

Who isn’t fascinated by human emotion? Pair that with a person you admire in that complex envious-nearly-coveting-way while they are showing you their brand-new pricy pickup, then it suddenly rolls down the driveway, smashing into a parked car. No one is hurt. And you laugh and laugh, tears roll down your cheeks.

Sound like something you might do? That is what the German word schadenfreude means.

“The Japanese have a saying: The misfortunes of others taste like honey. The French speak of joie maligne, a diabolical delight in other people’s suffering. In Hebrew enjoying other people’s catastrophes is simcha-la-ed.”

Cultural historian and author Tiffany Watt Smith in her awesome TED talk clearly demonstrates exactly how all over the globe, when it comes to really cranking up the happy, we humans find nothing more hilarious than the fails of our ex-wives/office mate/movie star/hunting buddy/mother-in-law. You know you do and that kind of laughter is not only the kind where you double over and the tears start to flow, it’s the one situation you never forget.

The cool dude at your place of work, swings back on his chair, and it tips over. You bust a gut. And now, today, think of all those video clips on your phone; cats and dogs and babies, the one that sticks in your mind is the one that doesn’t end so well. Admit it. You watch it over and over and maybe you don’t tell anyone how much you enjoyed it. You found it that funny.

Think maybe you’re a bad person after all? Nah, just a human person. The reasons we react as we do is what compelled Smith to delve further and me to share this with you. That and to make you squirm a little.

“We might worry that a taste for other people’s misery will corrupt our souls, yet this emotion is far from simply ‘bad.’ It touches on things that have mattered most to human societies for millennia: our instincts for fairness and hatred of hypocrisy; our love of seeing our rival suffer in the hope that we might win ourselves; our itch to measure ourselves against others and make sense of our choices when we fall short; how we bond with each other; what makes us laugh. If we peer more closely at this hidden and much-maligned emotion, liberate ourselves from its shame and secrecy, we will discover a great deal about who we really are.”

Though this book is small, it reveals a truth. The awkward reality that we all enjoy a little schadenfreude now and again. That sneaky laughter as someone takes a wrong step and life deals them a blow. Which does several things, one of which makes you shake with delight, the other, more complicated, makes you look around and see if anyone witnessed that seemingly callous response. Then you watch the video again. You know you do.

• Favorite schadenfreude?

• Book club fodder

• Humans are something

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The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry
By Gabrielle Zevin

Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson

If you like protagonists who like books about book-lovers who also happen to be booksellers who are a little persnickety and very sad and somewhat lost in the beginning and then, over time and many life-altering changes, become nearly lovable, pay attention!
Author Zevin proves early on that she is one very well-read woman by weaving into her story clever book title references and interesting writer tidbits I found impressive. Her authorial empathy for a plucky middle-aged man (Fikry) with an enormous chip on his skinny shoulder gave the story compelling turns and there is one surprise twist I did not see coming, make that two.
Before you even begin reading the actual ‘meat’ of this novel, each chapter begins with a brief short story review that at the start seemed kind of odd, but eventually made total sense. The first one is a review of the famous short story, ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ by Ronald Dahl. You eventually learn the reviewer is the star of the book, Fikry himself. These clever inserts not only share his philosophical viewpoints, but act as a brief summation of what is to come.
As with any retail sales environment, there exists the middle world of sales reps eager to offer their wares and in this case that is one person in particular; Amelia Loman.
“She is thirty-one years old and she thinks she should have met someone by now. And yet…Amelia the bright-sider believes it is better to be alone than to be with someone who doesn’t share your sensibilities and interests. (It is, right?)”
And here is a taste of what Fikry himself is like;
“Like?” he repeats with distaste. “How about I tell you what I don’t like? I do not like postmodernism, post-apocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn’t be—basically gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups a la the literary detective novel of the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children’s books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like…”
Though he doth complain, he eventually sees someone he could love and, more importantly, someone who can love him with all his torn pages and abrupt segues. The story almost entirely takes place on a fictional island off Massachusetts called, Alice Island, and it is there that Island Books bookstore becomes the center stage for this story to unfold. This book has it all; tragedy, romance, comedy and mystery and most of all it has soul.
The only moment I felt author Zevin pushed the sentimental envelope to the edge was when a small baby was left behind in the poorly stocked Children’s and Young Adult section of Island Books. Can we say, “tired author trick?” But, this miniature bundle of pamper-filling joy left behind by her soon-to-be-dead mother holds the key to Fikry’s broken heart and will certainly change yours.
“We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.”
Touché!

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Secret Santa: The Mystery of the Magic Watch by David Tank

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Secret Santa
The Mystery of the Magic Watch
By David Tank

Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson

Retired UW-Stout English Professor David Tank, has done it—again! If you’re looking for an original, locally created gift for that little reader in your life, look no further.
Each chapter opens with a clue; a vintage photograph to tempt your imagination. Author Tank has packed this new escapade with many historical factoids and woven into the characters’ lives are enduring life-lessons. The gift of family, how stealing is stupid and whenever time-traveling always bring plenty of Milky Way candy bars to share.
This is the second Secret Santa mystery and boy are the stars of the story off on a major magical adventure! As you probably already are well aware, time travel is a really handy way to get from one place to another especially if you’re Santa and have all those gifts to deliver in only one night. Normally this may seem a nearly impossible endeavor, but Nick (alias Santa) is not only the man behind the white beard, but also an avid inventor. One of which is the Chronambulator; a time-traveling machine with many uses and as Nick’s knowledge of the invention grew, his closet-sized time machine shrunk to the size of a pocket watch.
Even Santa can be influenced by the myriad of advances in technology and in the case of his magical watch, a visit to the Apple Store was the catalyst.
“I’ve been using the Smart Watch as my inspiration, ” Nick continued. “I’m shrinking the workings for my time machine down to a size that will fit into a pocket watch, which is synchronized with the full-sized Chronambulator. Let me show you.”
Sam, who is almost 12, and his sister Abby, 7 are the time-traveling duo along with their leader, Nick. Abby inadvertently pockets the watch and literally disappears back to New York City and the year is 1922.
Besides the overall journey-through-time escapade, the reader is also given a great deal of historical facts to consider in the very real way author Tank shapes this story for his protagonists. Such as the fact that sheep used to roam Central Park. That the merry-go-round ride running back in 1922 was actually driven by steam and after befriending not only the great magician Houdini but his wife, you even learn the secret of one of his most famous tricks! Which is how in the world do you make an elephant disappear? Actually, the secret is safe with Abby.
By the time the story winds up, it is Christmas Day and since the children had been time-traveling, no one is the wiser. All in all, this mystery will not only have your kids ready to find a watch like Abby’s, but also remember that the true gift of the holidays is found wherever family is gathered and magic is possible.
Happy Holidays!

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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Killer Of The Flower Moon
The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
By David Grann
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
“In the 1920’s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.”
Author, David Grann is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a bestselling author. In this well documented and thoroughly researched book, he sheds light on another dark chapter in American history.
In the early 1870’s, The Osage Indians were forced from their land in Kansas onto what was then considered a worthless rocky reservation in northeastern Oklahoma. But as the oil industry boomed, this ‘worthless’ land was just the rugged surface features atop one of the biggest oil reserves in the US. Oil prospectors paid the Osage royalties and in the early Twentieth Century, each member on the tribal roll started receiving checks. Big. Huge. Checks. They eventually got millions. This sudden wealth had equally sudden consequences.
America, fed by a racist and sensationalistic press, went bananas over stories of the Osage community’s sudden blast to the rich life. Their fame attracted the worst sort of corrupt white men with unscrupulous designs for attaining the ‘headrights’ or the heritable shares of oil royalties owed individual members of the Osage Nation
The Osage began to be killed, but the local authorities and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for the most part, failed to uphold justice or the law. The growing backlog of unsolved murders was brought to the attention of Washington in 1925 by a local lawman, James M. Pyle, who sought assistance from the Bureau of Investigation. The wealth of some of the Osage victims attracted national press and became an ‘embarrassment’ for the newly formed FBI, so J. Edgar Hoover appointed a former Texas ranger with the unfortunate name of Thomas B. White to investigate. The Osage murders were in some ways the FBI’s first big case, and one that Hoover used to help make his mark on Washington and re-create the image of the FBI as a solid investigatory agency.
Author Grann weaves a compelling tale through years of research and the staggering amount of evidence that identified one man, William Hale, as a mastermind behind the slaughter of at least twenty of the Osage. As Grann’s reputation as a researcher became known throughout the Osage community, ancestors of victims sought him out to share their stories of family members disappearing and fortunes lost. He realized the murderous rein was not limited to the government’s original estimate of 24 Osage members, but was easily in the hundreds and involved multiple murderers. Hale was finally convicted of murder in 1929 and jailed for life, but was paroled in 1947. Nearly all of the other murders remain unsolved.
After decades of mismanagement of the oil rights of the Osage by the Department of the Interior; “In 2011, the US government settled with the Osage for $380 million. The settlement also strengthened management of the tribe’s trust assets and improved communications between the Department of Interior and the tribe.”
There is no easy way for our nation to make amends to the Osage survivors. No simple explanation to explain away the prejudice that led to so much murderous loss of not only human life, but the completely illegal confiscation of wealth that was rightfully theirs. This well written chronicle goes the distance to return the Osage to their due place in American history, but will we do ours and re-write the history books?

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At every meal my dad says the Norwegian Table Prayer. Then he always follows it by saying, “Grab a root and growl.” I have always simply assumed that is pretty much part of the prayer too. At least if you want to eat at his table, it is.

Traditions.

Another one that has been going on since I can remember is the creation of Sandbakkels every Christmas season. Using the same recipe (my mom has tweaked) my dad’s mom’s mom used and with my dad mentioning before we sit down at the card table to ‘pinch’ the dough into tins,

“No pinchy, no eaty!”

Really. Every. Single. Year.

Once the little gems are in the oven and we’re working on pan two or three, I wonder why in the world I do this. It’s a lot of work and you have to sit still and then, once my dad is all warmed up and we’re there, his audience, I realize the why part.

Being together.

So, this coming year I will once again gather at my folks, my mom will have made the dough, adding the secret ingredient at the last moment and then off we’ll pinch and my dad will begin sharing the same stories I’ve heard a hundred times and I’ll look up and smile…

By the way, a Sandbakkel is a Norwegian cookie and no, we don’t fill them with anything. These are the tins we pinch them into.

(walnut-size blob of dough and pinch and pinch and pinch)

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sharp Objects
By Gillian Flynn
Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson
For Halloween I read a gripping mystery/thriller not for the squeamish. If you got a jolt of WOW from reading Gone Girl, you are in for an intense, enigma drenched shock-loaded, secret-packed page turner. This treacherous tale is driven by a pack of mean girls on steroids and the twists and turns will have you guessing all the way to the blood-pressure-through-the-roof ending. I mean, holy cow!
Phew. Now if that intro didn’t pull your reading curiosity to click over and reserve a copy of this baby, read on.
Meet Camille Preaker, a thirty-something woman with a face that could have launched her into magazine cover stardom. Instead she chose the life of a Chicago newspaper reporter with a focus on crime. Really gruesome crime. The kind that sells papers. The kind you read with the lights on. That kind.
Camille grew up in the small town of Wind Gap, Missouri and it is there she is sent by her hard-drinking chain-smoking editor boss to cover a murder. A little girl was strangled and now another is missing. This particular town is not only where Camille grew up, it’s where her younger sister Marian died. It’s also where her beyond belief rich mother still lives and it’s there that this story really rocks. And rolls.
Camille has an issue, a problem, a mental condition. I’ll let her tell you:
“I am a cutter, you see…My skin screams. It’s covered with words—cook, cupcake, kitty, curls—as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh….Sometimes I can hear the words squabbling at each other across my body.”
I know. Totally bizarre right? But can you imagine a better protagonist unraveling a mystery where she grew up along with all those words carved across her body and all that history in that small troubled little town? And it gets far more intriguing too. Camille has a step-sister, Amma, who is only thirteen, but beyond beautiful and much more dangerous than any sweet little spoiled rich girl ought to be. And then there is the mother. Adora. You just can’t even imagine.
Author Flynn has a razor-sharp snap with every word she chose, her metaphors will blow you away and the dialog hits you square in the eye. Underneath the clever turn of words her journalistic background allows her to root out the motivations of the horrible things we do to one another and somehow give them justification. This is perhaps her greatest triumph as a writer. The ending, though a huge relief when it hits, left me a little slumped with disappointment in my chair. Then I learned this book is now a short series movie and I really am not sure I could re-live this crazy story. Then again, why not?

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Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Luckiest Girl Alive

By Jessica Knoll

Who needs a beach/porch read? You do. This fact-paced, snappy novel packs a really satisfying (though it will make you squirm) ending. For a long time, I had wondered, what in the world is an ‘unreliable narrator’ and who would use one? And what kind of an author would pen a novel with the lead actor cast as a nasty, jaded human. Author Jessica Knoll does both and boy is this a kicker.
Give this opening a read:
“I inspected the knife in my hand….my fiancé. That word didn’t bother me as much as the other one that came after it. Husband. That word laced the corset tighter, crushing organs, sending panic into my throat with the bright beat of a distress signal…Slip the forged nickel and stainless-steel blade soundlessly into his stomach.”
I know. And believe me, the tension level in the tale is tight as a drum. One thing that I will share with you is that at the very end of the book, Knoll reveals one really horrible part of her book is autobiographical and had I known that from the start, I would have given TifAni FaNelli a little wriggle room. She is the lead in this train-wreck and boy does she have an opinion. About everything.
Twenty-eight-year-old Ani (alias TifAni) is rocking what she desperately wants you to believe is the most incredible life EVER! Living in New York, working for a high-brow women’s magazine, wearing the best of the best designer this and that and her body, a size zero with dangerous curves. Ani is the epitome of young female perfection in accordance with the super-hyped world of high-fashion. In other words, this dynamite babe is one hot tamale. Only that way inside is a fourteen-year-old girl who never fit in. Never. But dang, she did her best to try. And they did their worst in the process.
Through flash-backs we are led down the rocky road of what created this desperate woman/girl to reach for something we are constantly and ferociously led to believe is the ultimate goal. Looks, body and the perfect man will make your life incredibly amazingly perfect. Right?
Except, it doesn’t.
There are not one, but two defining moments that spin TifAni’s life literally out of control. They are both shocking in their own right and together create an amazing backdrop to how someone can be motivated to do some pretty unbelievable things in order to create an illusion of not only fitting in, but making it.
The fascination of the structure as well as how in the world is this all going to end create a pulse that pulls you in and doesn’t let go. The snide and snarky internal dialog of Ani adds to this quirky character and ultimately her barely discernable tender insides allow you to nearly like her.
Nearly.
There are many life lessons Ani draws from and one that sticks with me is how, no matter the odds, the good guys just never completely win. But honestly, it’s not the winning that counts, it’s the journey and boy is this one a doo
• Great for book clubs

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Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

FACTFULLNESS
Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
By Hans Rosling

This book will give you something we as a nation, no, wait a second, make that the world really needs right now.
Facts.
Things are not as bad as you may think they are especially when you have the facts. Want to test yourself about your basic knowledge of the world? Try these three questions, then check your answers at the bottom. No peeking.
1. In all low-income countries across the world today, how many girls finish primary school?
A: 20 percent
B: 40 percent
C: 60 percent
2. Where does the majority of the world population live?
A: Low-income countries
B: Middle-income countries
C: High-income countries
3. In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has…
A: Almost doubled
B: Remained more or less the same
C: Almost halved
Author Hans Rosling, a renowned Swedish doctor, researcher and lecturer in global health, created this book for all of us who have been getting the present state of the world totally wrong. It’s not your fault, entirely, but it is up to you to get your facts straight and realize that overall, we’re on the right track. Why does your blood pressure surge every time you tap through the news or talk to your co-worker? Author Rosling calls it the overdramatic worldview which is usually stressful as well as misleading. Why? The main reason the media does this so well is very simple; it keeps you watching, clicking, tweeting and wanting more of the same. It’s time for something new. Why have we gotten stuck in this mind-numbing treadmill? Rosling has a simple theory.
He believes we are intrinsically interested in gossip and dramatic stories. Admit it, we are. Our quick-thinking brains crave human drama in all its myriad of foibles, which he refers to as our dramatic instinct. This is what causes misconceptions that directly influence an overdramatic worldview. He feels we need to control our appetite for the dramatic because it prevents us from seeing the world as it is and leads us terribly astray.
One of the biggest influences our media uses to keep us clicking back for more is—fear.
“When we are afraid, we do not see clearly. Critical thinking is always difficult, but it’s almost impossible when we are scared. There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.”
This simple fact is not only easy to discern by reading any news headline but is the single most powerful driving force constantly moving us further and further away from the facts. What other facts might you learn from Rosling that will alleviate your daily self-induced dose of unproductive chain-and-ball stress?
Consider these.
Facts (exact numbers see link) of bad things decreasing in the world: oil spills, children dying, deaths from disasters, hunger. Facts of good things increasing: women’s right to vote, science, girls in school, literacy, child cancer survival.
“…a fact-based worldview is more useful for navigating life…and probably more important: a fact-based worldview is more comfortable. It creates less stress and hopelessness than the dramatic worldview, simply because the dramatic one is so negative and terrifying. When we have a fact-based worldview, we can see that the world is not as bad as it seems—and we can see what we have to do to keep making it better.”
Rosling is no Pollyanna, however. In a recent essay in the Guardian, he addresses the obvious challenge to his reasoning… “My guess is you feel that me saying that the world is getting better is like me telling you that everything is fine, and that feels ridiculous. I agree. Everything is not fine. We should still be very concerned. As long as there are plane crashes, preventable child deaths, endangered species, climate change sceptics, male chauvinists, crazy dictators, toxic waste, journalists in prison, and girls not getting an education, we cannot relax. But it is just as ridiculous to look away from the progress that has been made. The consequent loss of hope can be devastating. When people wrongly believe that nothing is improving, they may lose confidence in measures that actually work.”
The world is not as bad or lost or scary or messed up or un-fixable as we tend to believe. Know the facts and focus on what is important.
You.

· Know the facts
· Want more? gapminder dot org
· Correct answers: 1: C, 2: B, 3 C

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The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity by Sally Kohn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Opposite of Hate
A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity
By Sally Kohn

Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson

We all hate. All of us. That means me, and unfortunately it also includes you. We are not born to do this; to judge and then hate others. We are taught to hate by the world around us. And by the way, hate is a four-letter word, worlds away from another four-letter word: love.
Author Kohn first came to my attention when her Ted Talk landed in my in-box. If you’re not familiar with Ted Talks, you should be. Hate has always been a fascination to me, how bullies can develop from even the nicest seeming individuals and what is the motivating factor that allows us to hate others? How this powerful emotion can blind us into choosing sides and spewing hate.
It has to stop.
“In different ways and to different degrees, consciously or unconsciously, all of us, in one way or another, sometimes treat other individuals and entire groups of human beings as though they are fundamentally less deserving than we are.”
Though I do feel Kohn went slightly off the rails sharing examples in the book and over-explained several scientific research projects on the subject, her message is none-the-less important and very timely. I should caution you, as in the following quote, Kohn can be very harsh in her observations of our country’s past, but don’t let that stop you from hearing her larger message.
“The United States was founded on hate—the hatred that justified colonial annihilation of American Indians and that perpetuated the enslavement of Africans. Hate divided the country during the Civil War and, a century later, spawned protest movements and backlash movements, with activists vying over issues of justice and human rights. And Americans are not alone in this legacy…”
To understand how society can justify hate is not that difficult. If you don’t have the capacity to imagine yourself as black, Muslim, gay or anything you are not, you can justify hate. Everyone has done this to some degree. We all think we have it worse, which gives us permission to marginalize others by bullying, disregarding completely or simply not seeing our similarities. You name it, we find a reason and then we slather on the hate. The solution to changing this behavior of us vs. them is pretty simple. It’s there in front of you and it’s up to each and every one of us.
“We need to meet the people we hate and learn their stories, which means supporting institutions and policies that foster connection-spaces, and also creating our own. Getting outside ourselves, breaking through the physical and mental walls of our own narratives and viewpoints.”
The bottom line; it’s nearly impossible to hate anyone up close, in person, face-to-face.
“What I’ve learned is that all hate is premised on a mind-set of otherizing. The sanctimonious pedestal of superiority on which we all put ourselves while we systematically dehumanize others is the essential root of hate. In big and small ways, consciously and unconsciously, we constantly filter the world around us through the lens of our explicit and implicit biases. This abets rationalization and looking the other way about widespread injustices, such as dismissing entire communities that don’t have access to health care, of entire nations locked in civil war because they fall outside the sphere of our moral concern.”
There is a crisis of hate surging through the US and the world and we need to see it. Leo Tolstoy wrote, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
Consider this. You don’t have to agree with everyone, or give up your particular beliefs or views, you don’t even have to like everyone. Actually, the opposite of hate is so much easier to do and be and teach and experience and share. We really only have to keep this one thing in mind; we are all basically connected and equal as human beings.
The opposite of hate is—connection.

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