Facebook Destroyed Us

“You have to be mentally ill to believe the crap you are spewing. You are part of why this country is broken.”

I shook my head and wondered if they would have the balls to say this to my face or if they were the typical keyboard warrior and typed my response.

“You’re right. Doc says my mind snapped and that if I don’t take my meds bad things will happen. But none of that is material to whether the comment I made is accurate or not. Facts are facts.”

It is not the first time I have been called crazy nor will it be the last. Been called worse than that and with the rare exception gone about my business because of that whole sticks and stones thing we learned as kids.

“I knew it. You admitted you are a fucking lunatic. Why don’t you do us a favor and kill yourself.”

A wry smile crossed my face and I wondered what they would do if they found out I took their advice.

Thought about writing back something to effect of, “Good idea, I am going to go eat my gun now, look for it on Facebook live.”

Facebook Made Me Hate You

A year or so later and little has changed.

I am still not a therapist nor am I ever likely to become one.

If you are among the few people I talk to chances are we occasionally bounce ideas off of each other and or vent about the challenges we face.

But that is about as close as I get to being a therapist.

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There is a level of anger among people I don’t remember seeing before and I wonder if it is going to continue to rise.

It started a good while back and and really gained steam during the campaign and took off after the inauguration.

More than a few people have said they can’t spend any time on Facebook any more because it is not fun and I wonder if that will change.

Many of us choose to live in echo chambers in which are opinions aren’t challenged and our beliefs are validated by those who think as we do.

If we don’t agree with what we read/see we call it Fake News and move on to reading the next thing that proves our position is more righteous than the other.

Facebook Destroyed Us

I have been unfriended and blocked by some because I refused to agree with their position or said things they find offensive.

That is something I see as saying more about them than me. I don’t need everyone to agree with me.

Most of the time I really don’t care if you do or not because it is not important.

If I bust your chops about the sports team you love it doesn’t really matter because their winning or losing doesn’t have any impact on our lives.

But politics is different sort of animal and sometimes it is hard to know if that honey badger is going to turn on us.

Sometimes it is impossible not to wonder and worry if your support of a person or position will be dangerous to my family and friends and then things change.

They change because I have to look at the “what ifs” and wonder about the impact of the “worst possible outcome.”

When you have a 16-year-old son you spend even more time thinking about what would happen if the draft was reinstated and your kid was sent to war.

Faith In Government

When you have faith in your government you still hope your kid doesn’t have to go fight because you fear the worst possible outcome.

And while you can say you understand freedom isn’t free and that someone is out there protecting all of us it is different when your kid is doing it, especially if they didn’t enlist of their own volition.

****

People can tell you it is unlikely and you’ll agree but when an unqualified conman gets elected you realize the truth of “shit happens.”

It is a funny thing because I have a few of those stories I can tell and they don’t always come with happy endings.

But then again…some do.

Catch Me

Looking at the picture of the dancer in feature photo above I wonder if she shouted “catch me” and realized her leap was going to be short of the mark.

Did it make her nervous or cause her to overcompensate or did she just handle it because she had done the jump 10,000 times before in practice.

You might say I am overthinking it and I’d smile and say probably.

But the thing about a picture is it is just a snapshot in time and it doesn’t always provide you with enough detail to figure out what really happened.

You lack context, detail and perspective and find yourself making a judgment you might not make if you had all of the missing details.

But what do I know, if you believe everything you read on Facebook I am just some mentally ill guy hiding behind a keyboard. 😉

Call me greedy, but I am not willing to settle for just one verse or listen to excuses about why some things are or aren’t.

I am here to do more than that and that is what I’ll do.

Facebook may destroy some, but I won’t be among them.