Okay….So….I’m guilty too. I did it. Someone had to call me out on it. I learned from my mistakes.
They say a smart person learns from his mistakes, but a wise person learns from the mistakes of others. This is your opportunity to feel wise for a little bit….learn from my mistakes.
I never post anything negative on the internet. I’ll post some funny things that may piss off some people, but my rule is simple: If it made me laugh, share it. Here lately the world doesn’t have enough laughter in it, so I stick to my rule pretty tight.
Last summer in the middle of all the George Floyd riots across the country, I made and posted a meme that simply carried a message asking people not to judge the 90% by the actions of the 10%. The examples were broken down into about a half dozen common demographics, one of them being “99% of police officers don’t have a racial bone in their body”. You get the idea.
Now….I’ve never posted something that took off like that little meme did. Within two days I had over a thousand “likes” and a couple hundred “shares”. It was going everywhere, and I was getting comments from all over the planet. It was really kind of crazy, but in a good way….all the comments were positive and encouraging. Complete strangers were telling me things like, “Thank you – I needed to hear this today.”
Then…..well, then all hell broke loose. On about day four of that meme making it’s rounds, I answered some comments before daybreak and told my Tribe to SMILE, dammit…..I shut my computer down early in the morning and didn’t come back to it until late that night. Sometime during the day I had amassed 372 absolutely hateful private messages and thousands of comments on that meme had turned it into nothing less than a bloodbath. The volume of negative energy was just overwhelming.
At first I started to research the people who were calling me a racist xenophobe and come to find out I didn’t know any of them….and they sure as hell didn’t know me. I couldn’t figure out what I did to rub everyone the wrong way, so I dug deeper into their profiles and realized that a lot of them were members of the same club or group….then I noticed they were tagging each other in the comments. Hate Groups….it was a network of various hate groups that had decided I needed to be put in my place. Frustration set in….then I lost my temper. Those of you who know me….my brow was down, my nose was scrunched and that vein was protruding from my temple. I was pissed and I became hostile. I will neither confirm nor deny some of the things I cut loose with on social media that evening.
Then I noticed one of my Marine Corps buddies had stepped in to defend my honor sometime in the middle of that day. He got blasted. His wife and children got blasted. It was insane. A positive message thrown innocently into the universe had been met with a plethora of negativity. It didn’t make any sense.
I stared at the computer monitor for a few minutes and sipped on my coffee. The frustration drained out of me. I shut the social media down and opened this blog up and wrote my social media obituary, stating that I’d had enough and wouldn’t be back.
I didn’t open social media up for months. I’ll tell you the truth…I didn’t miss it. I really didn’t. I understand the bliss that comes from walking away from social media. Suddenly, there was more time to watch the sunrise in the mornings. I didn’t feel the need to check in a couple times a day to make sure I hadn’t pissed someone off inadvertently. I didn’t have to worry about all the lost puppies in the world and I didn’t see all the violence going on in the cities around the country.
Then a friend called me to check on me because he hadn’t seen my morning post in quite some time. In the course of conversation he mentioned that those little “Smile Dammit” morning blurbs had got him through some pretty rough times and that he really missed that morning dose of positive energy. That conversation really made me think. It put things in perspective. It brought me back to my morning messages.
That brings me to the point where I started writing tonight….I’m guilty too.
I quit. I let the hatred win. I had stopped putting positive energy into my Tribe and left a void that could be filled with insolence.
I keep seeing posts from people who are frustrated like I was and they’re closing their accounts. They’re allowing their message to be canceled. I usually message them privately and try to persuade them not to give in. Sometimes it works. Sadly, sometimes it doesn’t.
One of the more common themes I see lately is the people deleting all their “friends” who post thoughts they don’t agree with in an effort to make their feed more uplifting. BUT….if you delete those friends, they don’t see your positive messages. Okay….so….they’re living in a negative world at the moment. Deleting them doesn’t help anyone. Keep driving that positive energy down their throats. EVERY. DAMN. DAY.
If we stop trying to make people smile or laugh or…..hell….just understand that it’s going to be okay…..when we stop doing that we leave a void to be filled by someone who may be posting a message that brings despair, fear, angst or hostility.
The people you want to delete because they’re spewing hatred into the universe…..well, they NEED to feel the positive vibes more than anyone. By removing them from your circle you’re telling them that they’re not worthy of your message. If you’re making someone who’s in a bad place feel unworthy….well…you’re now inadvertently putting negative energy into the universe. You’re making someone with a bad perspective feel worse about themselves.
It’s easy to scroll past the negative in your feed. You scroll past the advertisements easy enough. I can usually tell in the first three or four words whether or not the post is worth reading.
Listen….I don’t believe this is an “Us” and “Them” kinda thing. I believe we’re all different people at different times in our lives. Hey, boys and girls…..I went through a long period of my life where I was just about as hateful as any one of you could imagine. I was just flat mean. Luckily, I outgrew it. Let’s just say that age and mileage gives you perspective. I’m not foolish enough to think I can put enough good into the world to counter the evil I put into it. Karma owns me for the rest of my days…of that I have no doubt. But, maybe….just maybe….one positive message one day will pull someone off the path I walked for so many years. Ladies and Gentlemen…There is no “Them”… we’re all one big merry band of deviants and derelicts….there’s just “US”. Some of us need help finding the positives in life. If the rest of us stop putting that positive energy out there, the ones who need it can’t find it.
So….HEY….Smile, dammit. Take care of each other. Be good to each other. Regardless how much negative you see out of someone, keep pouring the positive into the universe and let them drowned in it. It takes all of us….of that I’m sure.
Light’s Out.
Oh….Nope…..wait, wait, wait…..don’t go yet……I’ve got a P.S.
Actually, it’s more of a PSA…..
If you haven’t heard the group Whiskey Myers yet, I highly suggest you take a listen. If they sound familiar, you may have heard some of their music on the television series Yellowstone. I’ve really become a fan in the last few days.
Here’s a taste…..just cause I love ya…..
Now…..SMILE, dammit!
Light’s Out.