Curious regarding self hate / self love and how common it is, for i have no experience with either.
Not likely something useful to ponder, but somewhat interesting.
Often i see people struggling with self hate, and of course self hate is just something full of downsides and it is difficult for people to deal with.
Then you also have self love, and you see people often preaching it as well.
To me, i have no proper point of reference regarding this. I can´t say it´s "just" a result of practice, for even as a child, i never thought along such lines at all.
Thus i wonder how does self love/hate comes to be. It seems that how we think about ourselves, reality and such, is a big part of why that occurs. Self hate seems to be especially prominent in cultures with strong christianity - maybe guilt/shame/blame has some part in it? Who knows.
Anyway, as for myself, i have no hate nor love towards " myself ", as it just does not make any sense to me.
Some might think that it is almost a must have, to have Self Love, but not necessarily. Just like with some brahmaviharas and there being poisons and their antidotes, in similar way, Self Love just seems like antitode to Self Hate.
If there is no poison, there is no need for antidote. It also seems that there can be some issues with even Self Love, for it certainly does not help with anatta(non-self).
How is your experience? Is there many people who can hardly imagine self hate/self love?
+++rather pointless thing regarding my experience, no need to read this paragraph: One thing i recall why it might be missing for me, is due to being very strongly oriented towards logic and rationality, ever since being a child. Funny example i remember is when i was a child around like 9, i went with other kids to a forest, and i saw they started roleplaying as soldiers using imaginary guns. I was like " Why are they doing this? " and couldn´t participate even if i wanted to. This likely extends to how i think about things, which might be Why, to a degree at least.