Pandemic of troublesomeness (1 of 2)

Of course it's been pointed out with increasing frequency of late, but I believe it bears repeating.

This addiction to seeking out the comfort of the likeminded to the exclusivity of all others and recoiling from the sheer audacity of differently-minded people to exist cannot possibly lead to anything good in the long run.

Bubble-mania breeds a certain type of troublesomeness I know all too well as a contrarian. You know, rubbing people wrong because it feels good to do so. Now we got ourselves a hyperinflation of increasingly aggressive missionaries staking their claim on righteousness on every virtual street corner.

All this tribal grandstanding over ones perceived moral high ground is terribly, tragically idiotic. It's always existed, I know, but back in the good old days before the ubiquity of the Internet this misinformed chest-thumping tended to at least occur in the relative privacy of a bar, a church, a backyard, or what have you. Now it's all over everywhere and everything.

You'd think that the exposure to others' preaching could give one pause and reconsider ones emotional—Werner Herzog famously called them ecstatic—truths. But no, it's my dogma über alles and to hell with everybody else's. And there's that issue with the self-sorting and its ensuing "This is gospel! Preach, brother!" within the confines of ones tribe and "This is insanity! STFU!" outside of it.

Surely most of us have a remnant of an inkling that this stubborn emotional embrace of all that feels good to the rejection of all the bummers isn't sustainable? We cannot all just eat candy all the time and expect to remain healthy?