I got an e-mail late last night from a man named Jeff, a retired farmer I met a few years ago. I liked him, I thought he was decent and honest. He was forwarding a message to me from a friend of his, a man who was reading about my struggles with two farms, money and the details of life, and the man, a farmer also, was raging on about my writings. “Jon Katz,” he said, “says he is a farmer and a writer and obviously, he can’t make a living at either.” The message was written in one of those angry and hateful tones that are so common on the Internet, and in our civic life. I first heard them in middle school. The message complained somewhat bitterly about farming and how difficult it is and how I wouldn’t have a clue about that.

I was surprised that Jeff would forward me this message, and I thought back on my middle-school days when small boys, soon to become small men, delighted in passing along hateful messages from one person to another. Usually, they had a gift for spotting the most vulnerable among them, and made sure the weaker people  heard the worst things about themselves. I was one of those and Jeff’s message brought me back to that place, shared by so many people who had not yet learned how to be hateful and angry back.

I deleted the message by accident, which is perhaps a good thing, as there is never any point to answering angry or hateful messages and I rarely pay much attention to them these days and I don’t get many. Perhaps because I have been doubting myself somewhat recently, the message stung. I wanted to ask Jeff why he was passing on such a message, and I wanted to e-mail his friend too and tell him that I am not a farmer, and have never wanted to be one, I am a writer with a farm, and I have always made a good living writing. I wanted to ask him what purpose it serves to be so hateful and unknowing and reflexive in his judgements about people, although I bet both of them spend lots of time watching cable news, as these kinds of jeering messages are the currency there.

I wanted to say that I have many friends who are farmers and none of them whine about their lives like this, or ever judge mine, and that he ought to try writing a novel if he thinks his work is tough, and then I laughed at myself, kissed Maria on the nose and went off to read the latest new biography of Bruce Springsteen and read about something meaningful – rock and roll. Sometimes, they can still bring me, back, I see. Look how they can make us into them, after all this time.

I was reading the most wonderful piece by my friend the artist Donna Wynbrandt on her blog, about time and life and how wisdom comes from looking back on your life, and what a big person she is, in heart and mind. Unlike this whining farmer or me, Donna knows what a tough life is. Hatred trumps hell in the heart, she wrote, and the thing I have learned is that it is sad to be hurt by people like this, but so much worse to be a person like this.

I have often in my life had to choose between hatred and the heart. It may not be what Jeff and his friend had in mind, but I am grateful to be reminded of which choice I need to make.