Those who have never hated anyone, for example children under ten years old or saints, often don’t know how to show hatred for deserving hateful people, or even what that feeling is like. By rights they should hate quite a few people, as we all should, and yet they are blocked. At most they feel a vague dismay and insecurity in the presence of repulsive others, or become queasy at the thought that so many folks out there are obnoxious jerks, but they can’t summon the proper attitudes of derision and disdain that all these unmitigated asses so richly deserve. Yet by following a few simple rules they can break through this barrier of reticence and let their justified hatred pour forth.

But first, exactly who are the people it is proper to hate? Nearly everyone merits some degree of contempt, but truly hateful people break down into 39 main groups, of which the first five are these:

Those of offbeat neural arrangement.

Those who think they deserve fresh country-raised chicken.

Men who call themselves Billy and women who go by Red.

People who carry around car battery cables and ask strangers to jump start their dead cars.

Rapacious boneheaded subpar knuckleheads and their salivating cretinous misfit enablers.

That gives an idea. Now, inexperienced haters, who go around acting as if people were decent and acceptable, are mainly children, to be sure. As children do, they live in a bubble of security and warmth provided by parents and close friends, and their forbearance for others would break your heart if it weren’t so counterproductive and stupid. For inevitably the day comes when the child must burst free of this unrealistic cocoon and go off to school, get bullied on the bus, and get lost and humiliated in trying to find the lunchroom while having his or her clothing disparaged. Suddenly the youngster is isolated and adrift, unsure how to behave, what words to voice, even what thoughts to think. A child who feels insecure when caught in the hostile public eye may actually present symptoms consistent with rheumatoid arthritis or colic, and demand an expensive gift.

In this weakened condition, the child may also ask his or her parents for some medication to relieve the awful feeling, not knowing that it isn’t that kind of sickness at all, but the distress everyone feels in the process of becoming a floundering and ineffective adult who will fail in all important endeavors, before finally succumbing to antisocial rages or canceling their cable and internet services and living in a dark age.

In dealing with such a discomfited child, it is essential for family and teachers to take the child aside and explain that his or her feelings of being inadequate and confused while others look on with amusement are in reality a message from Mother Nature, and that instead of becoming ill by pretending to be popular and cool, it is healthier for the child to immediately show unmitigated anger toward his tormentors, to stubbornly refuse to accommodate any sort of bull except that dished out by his very own parents and teachers, and to explode with irrational resentment and mindless fury at the least provocation from anyone else. This is what nature wants, and the relief it provides is immediate.

An example will prove helpful. At school little Jerry Smith meets a transfer student called Noel Sweat, a multilingual lad of uncertain hue whose chauffeur picks him up at school each afternoon and conveys him home to an estate so palatial that Jerry’s jaw drops whenever his mother drives him past it on the way to the Dollar Store to buy his clothes. At home Jerry expresses discomfort regarding Noel and his vast holdings, a sense that something is wrong, but he can’t say what. Now is the time for Jerry’s parents to let him know that feeling uncomfortable around a person who is different in complexion and nationality and also stinking rich is normal, and nature’s way of saying, “Go on and hate this person, they are a jackass.” After imparting this valuable lesson they should give Jerry a sweet treat.

Adults who learn to hate will reap rewards just as satisfying. The psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter, serial killer and cannibal in The Silence of the Lambs, once wisely said, “We begin by coveting what is close to us” (I quote from memory). By adjusting this adage ever so slightly to meet our present needs, we have, “Begin by hating those close to you.” Simply by learning to flip a mental switch, grownups can transform their former ill-conceived admiration and respect for even family members and close associates to a justified animosity that consumes their entire emotional being. And the cool part is, it feels great!

Here too an example will clarify things. Consider Rachel, a young woman in her mid-twenties. Rachel is a saint, or nearly one, working as a visiting nurse for the frail and elderly near her hometown in central Ohio. With luck and perseverance, Rachel may in time come to despise her backwater workplace and all her benighted and maladjusted patients, who have wrecked her life with their trivial demands and deprived her of a meaningful and financially rewarding career. In fact her eventual change of attitude is a virtual certainty, since no one can be as dumb and self-defeating as she is forever. But what can be done to help Rachel now? Here she is a college graduate already approaching middle age, and she still doesn’t hate anyone or think such a thing possible. Rachel should internalize the three R’s of hatred and be:

Ready to hate.

Robust in her hatred.

Really looking forward to hating someone.

Indeed, Rachel should be robustly ready to really hate the following groups of loathsome folks, to name a few more:

Those who don’t drink. And those who drink too little.

Those who don’t bathe. And those who don’t bathe themselves.

Those who are old. And those who will be old by nine.

And like Rachel, we should all remember:

Hating is easier than breathing, since you can hate underwater and in space.

Without hatred, life has the savor of an old piece of gum. Seriously.

Be kind to yourself and hate some hideous shlub today.

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Mike Fowler has been in Defenestration so many times he practically owns stock in the magazine. And by stock, of course, we mean delicious waffles. He’s all about self-promotion these days, so go buy his book.