Why I've shut the f**k up
I just looked and it's been almost a year since I've posted anything to this blog.
I can't remember when I last posted as Dr Ralph on Facebook (and in my other guise I mostly share pictures of recent paintings from Instagram).
Twitter? Bah.
Most social media has become anti-social and I'm sick of it. Even for stuff that normally I would have some natural affinity for. It's tiresome and I'm tired.
I no longer feel up to joining the army of angry voices out there, even though I find myself alternately pissed off and horrified.
My most optimistic opinion about current events is that we, as Americans, have been stricken with a bout of temporary insanity, although truth be told, I don't think that insanity is ours alone.
I don't think trying to shout louder than the folks I disagree with is going to make the situation any better. So I've decided to shut the fuck up. Mostly, anyway.
I've got several friends and more than a few relatives that, in the interest of continuing to love them, I've stopped following (but not unfriending) on Facebook. Reading your reposts of Brietbart News no longer outrages me: it just depresses me. The same with the crap from Fox News.
My resolve was tested in the extreme with the latest horrific mass shooting, this time out of Las Vegas. 59 (at last count) dead, and over 500 wounded. A friend, a thoughtful person, started a discussion on Facebook about trying to find a solution to the seemingly uncrackable nut of guns in America.
I managed to get the first post, and said I no longer thought it was possible. She said, "Find a solution?"
I said, "I don't even think a civil conversation is possible."
I found myself getting dragged back in the conversation (my rule is: don't engage). Finally the trolls and disputatiously pedantic dickweeds crawled out from under their rocks and I gave up.
Five years ago, a maladjusted shooter killed 20 first graders with an assault weapon, not to mention 6 teachers trying to protect them.
If that didn't cause all right-thinking people to find common ground on this madness, I no longer think anything will.
In the aforementioned Facebook discussion, some asshole argued over what the definition is of an assault rifle.
And within 48 hours of the Las Vegas shooting some old friend of mine was posting alt-right conspiracy theory hokum.
Solution? Are you kidding me?
It depresses me to consider the possibility that people (especially ones I care about) are either so stupid or mean-spirited they actually believe this horseshit. And sneering references to MSM ("mainstream media," for those of you who have never had to wade through the swamp of alt-right conspiracy psychosis) -- good lord, get your shit together and pull yourself out of the swamp of paranoid delusion -- please!
Instead of writing clever, snide jabs at people (read by fewer people that I have fingers on my left hand), I've taken up other pursuits. I have developed a love of the occasional martini. And I have found several of my friends who I'd otherwise not agree with on other topics, do agree with me on the occasional martini.
So from now on, STFU and pass the shaker. I like mine dry with plenty of olives.
I can't remember when I last posted as Dr Ralph on Facebook (and in my other guise I mostly share pictures of recent paintings from Instagram).
Twitter? Bah.
Most social media has become anti-social and I'm sick of it. Even for stuff that normally I would have some natural affinity for. It's tiresome and I'm tired.
I no longer feel up to joining the army of angry voices out there, even though I find myself alternately pissed off and horrified.
My most optimistic opinion about current events is that we, as Americans, have been stricken with a bout of temporary insanity, although truth be told, I don't think that insanity is ours alone.
I don't think trying to shout louder than the folks I disagree with is going to make the situation any better. So I've decided to shut the fuck up. Mostly, anyway.
I've got several friends and more than a few relatives that, in the interest of continuing to love them, I've stopped following (but not unfriending) on Facebook. Reading your reposts of Brietbart News no longer outrages me: it just depresses me. The same with the crap from Fox News.
My resolve was tested in the extreme with the latest horrific mass shooting, this time out of Las Vegas. 59 (at last count) dead, and over 500 wounded. A friend, a thoughtful person, started a discussion on Facebook about trying to find a solution to the seemingly uncrackable nut of guns in America.
I managed to get the first post, and said I no longer thought it was possible. She said, "Find a solution?"
I said, "I don't even think a civil conversation is possible."
I found myself getting dragged back in the conversation (my rule is: don't engage). Finally the trolls and disputatiously pedantic dickweeds crawled out from under their rocks and I gave up.
Five years ago, a maladjusted shooter killed 20 first graders with an assault weapon, not to mention 6 teachers trying to protect them.
If that didn't cause all right-thinking people to find common ground on this madness, I no longer think anything will.
In the aforementioned Facebook discussion, some asshole argued over what the definition is of an assault rifle.
And within 48 hours of the Las Vegas shooting some old friend of mine was posting alt-right conspiracy theory hokum.
Solution? Are you kidding me?
Instead of writing clever, snide jabs at people (read by fewer people that I have fingers on my left hand), I've taken up other pursuits. I have developed a love of the occasional martini. And I have found several of my friends who I'd otherwise not agree with on other topics, do agree with me on the occasional martini.
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