What violence we are capable of while thinking well of ourselves! We wish no harm to others, but if harming others makes us feel good (or at least, less bad) we do it without remit or remorse. As someone with takeout food in my belly and a ticket in my pocket, I recently sat in the audience of Wallace Shawn’s play, “What We Did Before Our Moth Days,” at Greenwich House Theater in New York. It is not lite entertainment, a rousing, uplifting story of human triumph.

Recovering from trauma, I use hatred not as a vehicle for hurting others, but as a vehicle for changing myself, for changing the world. Eventually, hatred will be displaced by joy and curiosity.