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On Being Weary of Being Angry

I’m taking another FB break for the foreseeable future. While I may have posts on here, it’s just because they’re coming from other linked accounts, but I won’t be reading or responding.

A lot of the people I’m connected with on here are peers, friends, other authors, writers, creatives, and people I love to work with, hang at cons with, read their material, support, and cheer on. They come from many different lifestyles, creeds, beliefs, values, faiths, and backgrounds. And I believe deeply that everyone is equally worth loving, has inherent value, an deserves respect. At least to be treated humanely.

Do unto others, right? Love your neighbor. Sounds simple enough.

But when I come on here most days, I see…

Hate. Vitriol. Pure targeted toxicity and rancid statements being flung at each other because, heaven forbid, someone posts an opinion other people didn’t agree with. Middle-school bullying name-calling, slurs, and outright “I hope you die/badly hurt yourself so I can mock you” statements.

I don’t get them pointed my way, (it’s a privilege thing, I’m aware) but I see it from all sides, all camps, across every possible divide. And it hurts. I honestly want to weep at times because I see people who I really admire in and around the industry being absolute horrors to each other. And what’s the point, in the end?

Folks, it’s funny. As I’ve become a father and have been learning to parent my kids, and there’s one thing I have to tell them almost daily:

Kindness never hurt anyone. If you don’t have something to say that isn’t loving, helpful, kind, or at least civil, then just be quiet.

Hurting someone else or degrading them to make yourself feel better? Gossiping about that person because they pissed you off somehow and you want to give their reputation a kick? Grow up.

It’s the same even if you shrug it off and say, “I was just joking” or “Geez, have a sense of humor!”

That’s stuff kids told the chubby little geek I was back in elementary school while I picked myself up off the ground during PE.

I want people to be better than this. I know people are. You are.

I’m weary of it. I’m angry at it, and that anger is burning up mental and emotional resources I really want to invest elsewhere. It’s not worth the time or energy to sift through. If that’s what people want to waste their time doing, tearing others down, go for it. Your life.

I’m out. Cya around.

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