I checked out the R. Crumb Handbook from the library today. I was just a little too young for Crumb when he was famous and, by the time I was old enough, he was passé, so I never really got his stuff. I really enjoyed reading this book and toward the end is a truly excellent rant: a litany of hate. He describes a huge range of things that he hates, humanity, cars, architecture, nature, religion, governments, money, power, etc, etc, etc. And then

[...] For me to be human is, for the most part, to hate what I am. When I suddenly realize I'm one of them, I want to scream in horror.

Hell is other people -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Hell is also yourself -- R Crumb

For this one rant, the book is worth checking out of the library. And the rest of the book is very interesting as well. As I said, I don't really know Crumb's work well enough to know whether this is a representative sample or not -- if this captures the gamut or if there's a lot more to see. But it's all interesting stuff.

Personally, I believe I've gotten past the hate. I used to feel that way too. But at some point (during my mid-twenties, I think) I decided to try to accept who I was and what the world was. And who I had been. I decided that, no matter how stupid the things I had done in the past seemed to me now, I chose to believe that they must have seemed like the right thing to me at the time. And to give myself permission, or forgiveness, or whatever, to have been that person at that time. This has helped me a lot, in terms of not feeling like I need to rake myself over the coals for how I acted in the past. To put it behind me and move on. I'm not saying it's right. Just expedient. It helps me live with who I am. Hating everything, including yourself, seems ... self-defeating?


StevenBrewer