Why is everyone so angry?
 

Lately, I've been noticing that people seem to be on short fuses. Is my perception wanked because I am stressed myself, or is there really a crisis of patience brewing?

I noticed it just now, as I went for a break. I had written the following for the hippo pic in IOTD, but hadn't pushed "post":

The topic of that reply isn't the important thing here. What struck me is that I never used to be so cynical. Now, 90 percent of the responses I make look like that at first, and have to have the vinegar edited out once I realize my knee is jerking. My actual thoughts on the matter are, "Yeah, people are wasteful, but you don't have to be so shrill about it. We're all just getting by the best we can." Why do I feel like I have to fire both barrels all the time? Why does it seem like everyone else feels the same way?

So, here's my theory. Life has gotten too easy. Humans are programmed for hardship -- we're physically unfit for real survival, except for a sense of community and a brain big enough to design things like air conditioning and packaged foods. But, since most of that stuff is taken care of (YMMV), we really don't have anything to worry about other than emotional issues.

As a result, our hardship-deprived minds key in on every perceived obstacle or irritant, inflating it to epic proportions and demanding that everyone around us take note of our displeasure and Do Something About It, or at least commiserate with us. Victimhood is bigger business than ever. You can be a victim of anything, from lousy cell phone coverage to some ancient wrong visited upon your ancestors.

Everyone has real problems, of course. Loved ones die, people let you down, stuff breaks and can't be fixed. But when asked to point to someone who's serene, 9/10 of us will point to a cancer patient, a victim of violence, someone living in poverty or some other horrible condition. They really have it rough, and perversely, are often happier than we are. Their minds are consumed with finding happiness instead of finding something to bitch about.

I'm blathering on here. But back to the initial question: What's everyone so pissy about?

oh screw you and your stupid lofty questions, asshat. we are dealing with real problems here. ;)


or i could say....

no anger here. i don't really get angry that often. although, sitting at the black jack table last week i got fed up with a woman from new york sitting next to me and i calmly looked at her and said "die bitch, please, just die" and i wasn't kidding. seeing as how she sounded like Fran Drescher and wouldn't shut up, was that an angry request or a measured response?

but seriously, i think cellarites tend to get more angry and antsy in our discussions when we don't have any really weighty issues to discuss. seriously, think about it. what emotional involvement could we possibly have in discussing someone's dialect or accent? and yet, some tempers apparently flared. in most cases tempers didn't really flare when talking pre-election politics.

You are so right! I notice it when I drive, when I consume, when I work, when I vacation, when I go for a walk. I think we're too used to instant gratification, and we're overcrowded to the point where we get in each others bubbles so much that we irritate each other. That's why I'm getting outta L.A. - everyone seems to be on edge - hoping for a nicer pace of life where I'm going. Then I can get back to being my usually happy peaceful self. Most people think there's something wrong with me because I don't complain, I smile way too much, and it takes a lot to get me down.

In my case it's pretty much exactly what you said: "Life is too easy." That's why my plan after I graduate in May is to take a pretty big step outside of my cushy world.

Well, I disagree with the "life is just a bowl of cherries" theory. Come on, if life were that wonderful, why would folks have any reason to cop an attitude in the first place? If you want to look to anthropology for answers, try looking at the Polynesian peoples. Nice tropical climate, plenty of good food, nice ocean, lots of free love, and great sunny attitudes until the white boys showed up. I don't think the human species evolved to be unhappy. And sure, you can find an occasional person whose entire family was murdered by drug crazed members of some cult or a person living at 300% below the Federal poverty guidelines who is being evicted from his home who is somehow happy as a lark and quotes Anne Frank, saying "I think there must be some good in everyone." Generally, such individuals have severe personality disorders and should be locked up for the good of society, let's face it.

I think the reasons for the animosity you see on the Internet are:

1) Its really pretty impersonal. You don't see the person you are replying to. Its just words on a computer screen. Outside of road rage, people are at least minimally civilized to one another in real life - mano a mano.

2) People feel powerless to do much about issues that really upset them and may even impact them personally. Fine, you read all about the hole in the ozone layer and then find out that your aunt is dying of a melanoma. Is there much you can do about this? Not really. You can join 10 worthy environmental causes and tithe 10% of your paycheck to cancer research, but you're still going to be attending your aunt's funeral in about 6 months.

So, some innocent posts something about "stupid environmentalists". Its time to go in for the kill big time! After all, its just the computer, right? :headshake

I beg to differ on the point about people who face hardships do it serenely. Maybe this is only a personal experience of mine but my grandmother, who got a stroke, afterwards bemoans her illness all the time. Sometimes, I think it might be her sense of helplessness since she can't walk around much anymore (and even then painfully). It's understandable but not every person in the midst of hardship is going to be serene or happy.

what's an asshat?

I haven't been around enough lately to notice, but I can assure you that my patience and spirits are high, as usual.

I think it's the time of year as well. Everyone hates August.

It's fuckin' HOT, and it's the only month without a federal holiday, for starters.

Someone with their head up their ass.

Ahh! And you'd think I, off all people would know that. :smirk:

Marichiko:) Hiya! didnt know you still frequented the cellar:)
I dont think people are angrier now than they ever were. Maybe we just have more ways to express it these days. We can come online and have a bloody good rant if we want to. .....Hell I feel like having a rant now! :P

90% of humanity's troubles could be cured by a 80% reduction in population. One of the many reasons I'm a member of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. :headshake

That's another thing that I question, though. Are our hardships really as hard as we think they are, or do we simply not have anything REALLY bad to compare them with? By the way, I also know people who have a really hard time coping with illness or bad times -- I wasn't saying all sick people are serene. I was saying that the most serene person you know is one who has successfully dealt with hardship, not one who has never endured it. Sloppy writing.

but marichiko, in disagreeing with me, you emphasize (kind of) my point. What happened to whatever Polynesian tribe in 17XX, and how it proves that white people suck is an abstraction. The fact that you (and I) are thinking in those kind of terms is evidence that our brains don't have nearly enough to do :lol: insofar as our personal survival and well-being is concerned.

I can point to my own family over the last year/s to illustrate. My family is close, as many are. Things that happen to another member hit close to home, and the effects are keenly felt by all.

My baby nephew is going in for surgery Sept. 1 to correct something with his skull. It fused too soon, and has to be broken/cut apart again to allow for growth. That sucks.

My grandmother died because the staff at her nursing home failed to give her heart medicine for 15 days. We had struggled for years to take care of her at home, and only when the situation became unmanageable did we reluctantly allow her to be admitted to that place. That seems unfair.

I just got arrested for DUI at a checkpoint, and will lose my license for a year (it's 15 miles to work) and possibly get a month in jail. My fault, but had some lousy luck involved too (.087 BAC, resulting from 3 1/2 beers and no supper). This is going to put a financial strain not only on me, but on my parents, who are fast losing precious retirement years bailing out their dumbass kid. They deserve better -- particularly since neither of them have ever so much as even touched the stuff. They don't even fudge on their taxes. My dad said, when I told him about the arrest, "Why get a lawyer? You did it, didn't you? Just go take what the judge gives you." They deserve kids who are as straight as they are, but we 3 have broken their hearts countless times over the years with drugs, premarital sex, booze, and money trouble. The other two are married with kids, and living like their parents raised em too. I've still got one or two hanger-on demons, but things generally are looking up.

Dad got prostate cancer, the aftereffects of which are both highly personal and emotionally devastating.

One cousin I grew up with was killed in a car accident in TX. He had been drinking. He was in the process of divorcing his wife, who, upon learning of his death, went to his parents' ranch, entered the son's house and removed all the saddles and buckles he had won in rodeos since childhood. So she could sell them. For drugs. The sheriff was called, but could only stand there because they were still legally married and the stuff was more hers than his parents'. Even though she had only known him for 3 years. She drove off with 25 years' worth of their son's history, flipping them the bird over her shoulder.

The next year, that same guy's grandfather (same ranch), whose health had collapsed after the grandson's death, fell while closing a gate and broke his hip. He was found 4 hours later and taken to the hospital. They needed to perform surgery to fix the hip, but he developed an infection and lost his leg. The infection was not completely removed, however, and soon after, he lost the other leg. Got sick after a stroke, nursing home for a couple years, and he died. A month later, his despondent wife (who lived in the same nursing home) followed suit. The father, who lost his parents and son in the same year, has a look in his eyes that can only be described as worn out.

Another cousin went in for his 2nd kidney transplant two days ago. the first one was rejected 10 years ago, and he's been on dialysis ever since. He's not even 30 yet.

But I ate 3 meals yesterday, slept in my own bed in an air-conditioned house. I came to work this morning, and because I have relative freedom to do whatever I want as long as the articles are in on time, I spent an hour at the Cellar. Tonight we're having a band practice. I made my car payment on time this month, and found the $700 to finish paying off my lawyer (whose brother committed suicide over the weekend -- no shit).

Life could be so much worse. Yet, the sight of someone applying makeup while driving makes me homicidal, even though it makes absolutely no difference to my ETA at work.

I lost my point a long time ago, but it was therapeutic to write about all that shit for some reason.

You did it, got caught at the currently in vogue artificially deflated BAL levels ... and are probably, at .007 over, within the error for the field breath test device. Or was that a subsequent blood draw number? And didja know that because they swab your arm with alcohol for the blood draw, there's a miniscule raise in your BAL. Usually something under .01 or .02, but that changes your results enough that you could arguably have been legally under ...

Get the lawyer.

At the very least, plead out and try to keep your license as part of the deal.