Hatfields and McCoys: a history of hatred

I'd been looking forward to watching the made-for-TV-mini-series since first I saw it advertised on The History Channel --- the legendary feud between the Hatfield family and McCoy family. 

For two nights Tammy and I watched. Finally, we turned stopped. We grew weary of knowing what was going to happen next --- someone was going to 'get kilt' --- either a Hatfield or a McCoy, someone was going to get shot or stabbed to death.

One thing the mini-series did, though, was prompt a good discussion between Tammy and me about hatred and what it does to the human heart. Whether we'll admit it or not, all of us have the capacity for intense hate --- given the fertile circumstances. Also, in the right circumstances, we all have the capacity, not just for hate but also, to execute atrocities to which hatred gives birth. 

Nothing good is ever born of hatred. Nothing.

The mini series depicted the animosity between two families for each other, the Hatfields and the Mccoys, and the cancer it becomes. While the killing of each by the other was tragic, the truth is once a person is dead, they're dead. They're harmed no longer.

The real tragedy depicted by the series is what hatred, and it's kith and kin, does to the human heart. Before any deed is done, it's a thought that simmers unseen. After a thought simmers and gives birth to a deed, the memory of the deed simmers, unseen, in the heart and impacts the soul.

Each of us has a higher self and also a lower self. Like the words in Robert Frost's Poem, which we choose makes all the difference:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. The two roads of Frost's poem are in my heart. The one less traveled is the more difficult of the two. It's the road of my higher self.