Love, Hate, & Indifference

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”  -- Elie Wiesel

 

Upon looking up the actual definition of indifferent, for the purposes of being specific and not applying my own definition, I think the gravity of my thoughts on this quote sunk deeper and hurt more than before.  Merriam-Webster defines indifferent as, "does not matter one way or the other" and, "of no importance or value one way or the other."

I have decided I would rather be hated than have someone feel indifferent about me. Indifference hurts more than hate, to me at least. Indifference means someone has no feeling towards me in either direction. The thought that I would mean so little to someone as to evoke no emotion is way worse than the thought that someone hates me. If they hate me at least I have left some mark on their life, on their soul, as opposed to meaning nothing. If they hate me at least I mean enough to evoke some emotion.

I suppose one of my biggest fears is that my birth parents are indifferent to me. That I mean nothing to them, I evoke no emotion. It would be another great imbalance - I have so many emotions regarding them and to think they have nothing regarding me would be devastating. In fact, I can not imagine it without feeling a searing pain, emotional and physical, to my core. But I personally can't imagine being indifferent about anybody.  Even strangers evoke more than indifference to me. I wonder, am I less than a stranger?

But then maybe indifference is the greatest form of denial.  Pretending that a person or situation is devoid of importance or value, that it evokes nothing, means nothing, distances someone enough to avoid the pain of the situation. The emotions that sting like remorse, helplessness, feeling powerless to control your life or decision, or maybe even being forced into a decision where every outcome is painful can be pushed farther away by forcing a state of indifference. Maybe indifference is the biggest lie we tell ourselves to survive situations in our lives that evoke too much of every emotion to process or handle.

I speak for my birth parents too often - assuming their state of mind, refusing to believe that they could be as cold and distance as they are from my life when I have offered them such a warm loving place to be. It is my own form of denial.  My own hope that rather than indifference they feel,  they feel too much and opt for the illusion of indifference to cope with the presence of pain.  It is my hope anyways.  My fear is indifference.