I Can’t Look Away, And I Hate That

Sometimes it feels impossible to stay indifferent. I see violence, oppression, racism, injustice, war, intolerance, corruption, inequality—and yes, even hatred itself—and I can’t pretend it doesn’t affect me. I know I’m not there. I don’t pull the trigger, I don’t make the orders, and yet, the cost always falls on the innocent. Civilians. People who have no say in the decisions that shape their lives.

It would be easy to try to close my eyes, to turn away, to numb myself. But that’s not who I am. I can’t. And maybe that’s what makes me human: the refusal to be silent, even when my voice has little power, even when the world seems beyond repair.

I hate the things that deserve to be hated: cruelty, exploitation, abuse, injustice. And yes, I even hate the small frustrations, like a slow internet connection—but that’s part of being alive. The paradox comes when I try to deal with hatred itself. How can I reject it without becoming part of it? Even sacred texts tell us to hate wrongdoing, to resist evil. Some people might say, “Andy, aren’t you supposed to condemn them?” But if only it were that simple. If only I could say to the world, “Act in a way that I don’t have to hate you.”

Online, it’s exhausting. Groups I belong to are scrutinized the moment someone makes a mistake. The haters demand immediate condemnation, generalize our entire community based on one person’s action, and amplify it with the harshest labels they can find. Yet when the same thing happens in their circles, the outrage is nowhere near as fierce. It wears you down, mentally. The double standard, the relentless judgment, the assumption that silence equals complicity—it’s heavy.

Still, acknowledging it, feeling it, and processing it doesn’t make me weak or unusual. I’m not indifferent. I can’t be. And I don’t think anyone with a conscience truly is. The challenge is finding a way to care without letting it burn you out. To recognize evil and injustice without letting hatred take root inside you.

It’s a strange balance. But it’s also necessary. Because if I stop seeing, stop caring, stop acknowledging the harm done to others, then I’ve already lost something essential—my own humanity.