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Over and over in the comments of these various anger-inducing conversations, Fb-friends (or, as I call them, Fbriends) made comments along the lines of, "Well, people are stupid." "Yeah, people are terrible." "Humans don't deserve what they've got/" "Humans are the worst." And so forth.
Which, frankly, I feel is all true. But it was making me feel awful, and I had SO much outrage. More, even, than the usual outrage felt on any given day since 2016.
Amid all that, the only other news story piercing these swirling topics of doom was another sad story, that Stephen Hawking had died.
That reminded me: there are some really smart people in the world. Geniuses, in fact. Why, then, was I wasting my time fretting so fiercely about all the stupid people?
Why was I engaged in fruitless arguments, dealing with the nonsense babble of #trumptydumpty supporters and other hideous specimens... why? When I could be reading the words of smart people instead?
Wednesday I found myself in a Barnes & Noble, where I picked up a copy of A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and resolved not to go back on Facebook until after I had read it. Simply, replacing the stupidity with the smarts.
Boy, it's been a nice four days!
Some unanswered questions that I will try to answer:
Q: Why hadn't I read A Brief History of Time before now?
A: Seriously, have you seen my to-read piles? Egad. But it is now proudly shelved in "read" -- and "finally."
Q: Didn't I hate being "that guy/gal" reading it the week he had died?
A: Well, duh. But I got an excuse note from a supervisory book related figure in my life who understood the nature of my predicament (the outrage, the step away from Fb, the normally-I-wouldn't-do-this ... and oh yeah, p.s., also the uh, we're not exactly worried people will think we're not smart).
Q: So...did I like the book?
A: Hell yeah! So funny and personable! So the story of the universe! So worth reading, y'all seriously. It won't even take you four days -- you'll be able to return from your Brief History of Facebreak much faster than I did, if you have anything resembling free time/a normal life, which I do not.
Q: Is it hard?
A: Well, the universe is hard. So there's that.
Q: What is a singularity? Is time travel possible? Will we ever have a Grand Unified Theory? Is the weak anthropic principle a valid outlook? What's a gluon? What would happen to an astronaut falling into a black hole? Can we really know the mind of God?
A: Uh, guess who tackles these questions? Not me! That would be, our boy Stephen. Come on, go buy the book folks. AT A BOOKSTORE, PLEASE, THANKS.
I recommend the illustrated version.
You are not in my future light cone, #TrumptyDumpty. You are in my elsewhere, and you can damn well stay there.
2 comments:
Linda, your anger & displeasure with people is evident. Humans do some things which one wonders "Why?" But that's humans. And humans in other parts of the world are a lot worse than here in the USA, as you should know, since you've had the opportunities to reside & work in other parts, not just travel and be a tourist. I hope you'll do what you can for Linda, and not get too upset over what others do, over which you have no control. Other than to vote and speak out, of course. But it is an enigma, that some people can invent so many things, but society as a whole has so many problems that don't seem to improve. Most people don't think logically, they go on emotion and first thought. So we struggle. I just feel like we need to carry on, never give up the fight for improvement, and don't let the situations wear us down into despair. As Scarlett and Annie said, "Tomorrow is another day." and "The sun will come out tomorrow." Or as the philosopher Chet likes to say, "Expect the worst, hope for the best, and deal with whatever comes."
Taking issue with the statement "And humans in other parts of the world are a lot worse than here in the USA" -- that's an appalling thing to say!
It's a frightening and dangerous attitude, in fact. Besides being insulting and xenophobic on its face, it also smacks of ignorance about the world and disdain fostered by years of grotesque manifest-destiny jingoism. Yuck. There is nothing inherently or finally better about people in the USA, "as [I] should know, since [I]'ve had the opportunities to reside & work in other parts, not just travel and be a tourist" -- and it is my fond hope that United Statesians can drop their misguided exceptionalism and stop thinking in such a sad manner.
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