I worry about you

(I wrote this back in 2017 and have made a couple of tweaks today for clarification, but sadly it’s still valid.)

I worry about you sometimes, old friend. I sign onto Facebook or Twitter and you seem so angry.

From the links you link and the comments you post, you seem to believe the most vile and hateful stuff about your fellow human beings, especially people who hold a different political belief than yours.

You seem so agitated and out of sorts that I almost hope you are just being cynical and playing the game, repeating your favorite party’s most hostile talking points to keep the pot boiling.

I would much rather believe that you are just playing that game, because the alternative explanation is that you have entered a twilight zone of paranoia and fear and hatred where only you and your fellow travelers hold the key to enlightenment and everyone else is lost under the spell of an evil darkness.

Do you really believe some of the things you say? Do you really believe those things about me, a person who disagrees with your political philosophy? I know for certain that you are wrong about me, and therefore I wonder how wrong you might be about the people we don’t know whom you describe as villains.

And I worry about your health. All that bile coursing through your veins is bound to take its toll at some point.

So I think about you, and when I remember I pray for you, in hopes that you are not as unhappy and angry and hateful as you seem; that you spend most of your time enjoying this precious, wonderful life we have been given; and that what we see on social media are only representations of brief moments of hatred and despair that fade into the background when you log out and reflect on the big picture.

Because if you really are this angry and this blinded by hatred, I worry about you.

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