This is an exceptional post:
One more murder/suicide. It's the height of self-destructive rage.
Several of my Facebook friends have been posting uplifting memes as a way of digging themselves out of depression and dark mental places. It's a small sample, but I think a lot of people are having a tough time maintaining their emotional balance. It puts me in mind of Thoreau's famous quote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
I found my version of Waldon Pond years ago, but still remember the early '80s, when I was in my 30s and everything in my life was going wrong. It seemed nothing I did helped, and I was angry all the time. That level of frustration consumes you.
I think modern American life is not good for people. There is too much noise, too much congestion, too many rules, and a constant drum beat of fear and anger. It is not good for people to live in fear.
I like TBN because rural living dials down the anger. We can justifiably be angry at that gopher in the garden, and make serious plans to kill that sucker, without inflicting violence on people. We don't keep guns for self defense, we keep guns because we might need to shoot something. People in cities think guns are for shooting people. I can't imagine that. I have to work myself up for two weeks just to butcher a cow. I think if more people had been up to their elbows in a warm gut pile, they would be less casual about killing.
I would like to discuss the portion I highlighted, and this:
I do find the radio on my short commute gives me most of the news and TV is less and less...
Still read paper when time permits but it keeps shrinking in size.
Some of the happiest people I know are the least connected or plugged in...
Typically involved with their church, grandkids and gardening...
The opposite I've found true with the big screen and 24 hour cable news being wound up a lot of the time to the point of hair trigger on both sides...
I believe the ailment America and most of the west suffers from is multifaceted but the main component is media, with a large sub-component being
social media. For the older population probably the "news" is the biggest factor and for the younger population probably social media is the bigger factor. Those in the middle suffer a double whammy.
I quit following "the news" a few years and my mental health improved significantly. But I still had a fly in my ointment. It got worse over time. After covid hit, it was downward spiral. I couldn't believe half the population is so stupid because they believe "this" and the other half is so stupid because they believe "that." And I couldn't believe how hateful they all were in throwing their ideologies at each other. The world seemed like not such a great place.
So before getting to the mental state where I was ready to quit the world, I quit the thing that was influencing me to think how bad it is*. Since then, my only "social media" experience is forums like this, and I mostly stick to the technical threads and leave threads like this unread. The only reason I skimmed this is one to see if anyone brought up the reason why "going postal" is a term.
Since then, I have been a much happier person. Since then I have more time for things that matter. Since then I experience the world as it is, not as how Facebook wants me to think it is. Which brings me to:
* In case you didn't know, Facebook AI curates your feed to show things that it knows will get you fired up. They've figured out that things which make your blood boil, generate more engagement (more ads seen, more money made) than pictures of cute kittens. They give you just enough cute kittens to keep you from feeling like it's an absolute cesspool of rank butthurt, but in fact, it's an absolute cesspool of rank butthurt. ON PURPOSE. Facebook is a cancer of society and I think it and every other social media platform plays an appreciable yet unfortunately unquantifiable role in nearly every major tragedy like this one.
Please, quit social medial. You will be glad you did. It matters not how many uplifting memes you read, share, or re-share. You're playing a game that is rigged against you and they wellbeing of society, and you're just a pawn.