Here’s what’s crazy. Okay, so we’re hardwired to think we’re special. Got it. If we didn’t think that we’d never procreate. What’s the point of another me if i’m not certifiably awesome? And we’re able to look beyond – or better yet incapable of fathoming – the fact that there are 6,000,000,000 other equally awesome beings on this planet. We are in the best sense of science tiny inconsequential things on a small speck of a ball floating in a universe beyond our comprehension. T’were it we were able to comprehend that, we just might end it all right now. (Or invent religions.) So why am I so fucking awesome? No idea. But I most certainly am.
So that’s a huge intro to wondering how we got so cranky. My 47 years have shown me many, many cranks. The old dude in the house a few doors down who mostly just yelled at us kids when we veered on to his lawn or made a bit of noise after dark. The cranks. The angry few. They had their reasons, whatever they happened to be.
But what of today? Who are these cowards who go online and comment on articles and posts and anything else in an absolutely petulant, angry, and offensive manner. I use offensive in both the ‘I’m on the offensive’ and ‘that’s fucking offensive’ manner. They hide behind sad little monikers that further emasculate them, and then attack like angry chihuahuas barking, yipping and yapping at one another safe within their cages bathed in computer blue. Do they thrive on the anger or hope for some win that can’t happen in the never ending blogosphere? Or, and this is what scares me, do they get their energy from the anger itself? Do they sit anonymously at their computer and feel some sense of anger/power that’s new to our world? (Newspapers would never print your rant unless you had the guts to use your name.)
This is more of a problem than we think, I think. These are no cranks as we once knew them. The guy who shouted from his front porch or wrote the fuming letter to his local paper. He was not anonymous and had to live up and stand up to his anger and whatever response he compelled. These are true cowards – tiny unabombers – who hide behind silly names with no repercussions for what they write, but feeling awesome in their anger.
File that under pointless rants. But my name is Luke, and I approve this rant.
Luke Soiseth 