Common wisdom deems certain emotional response appropriate of a clear minded individual of firm moral foundation. Take for instance the acts of physical abuse, slander, theft, homicide, or extortion.
There’s merit in feeling ill-disposed towards action that violates others' life and liberty. But what about the myriads of occurrences of no immediately clear moral framework, stemming from heavily varied principle; of little direct consequence?
Little, but for the emotional strain we let loose. It is here that we observe the ugly side of human nature and differentiate ourselves from other animal life: self-inflicted emotional abuse. Not necessarily out of rationale for injustice rendered, but in and of itself, out of pure caprice.
The predicament has challenged minds over ages. If we are at liberty to grant whatever meaning we please to the otherwise meaningless external input, why do we opt for frustration over contentment? Would it not compel us to override destructive feedback?
Over time I let myself become possessed by a strain of triggers that sometimes give manifest, needlessly, to the ugliest of emotions. Here I survey a handful:
Excess of easily avoidable waste. Paper towels, plastic bags, disposable kitchenware, unnecessarily packaged products.
Central air conditioning.
Argumentative fallacies. The few predominant ill tactics I encounter all the bloody time:
Arguments directed at the speaker’s authority rather than the underlying issue.
Assuming two diametrically opposite options, when there are, in fact, many.
Rather than first principles, appeal to ‘everyone’, ‘no one’, or the presupposed ‘general common knowledge’ as means to strengthen or repute a claim.
News broadcasts.
False benefit bestowal: rendering a benefit to another based on the giver’s conviction, not the receiver’s.
Non-constructive complaints. Of greatest annoyance are mine.
Complaints used merely to vent and raise apprehension; no hint of actual resolution, innovation or humor.
Much human dialogue comprises of this category of complaints, disguised, naturally, under information. I still voice one frequently enough. Immediately follows self-reproach.
Most praise.
I wish I was never praised for anything but that which involved authentic challenge and perseverance. And even then it’s questionable.
Per the cinematic feature Whiplash, I still recall the agreeable remark, paraphrased:
Good job is indeed one of the worst expressions of the English language.
Ethnic prejudice hypocrisy.
Prejudice against other skin colors is commonly referred to as racism; against Jews, anti-Semitism. And on. Nearly everyone exhibits the prejudice to some degree against some ethnic group. That’s not the issue.
It’s the hypocrisy that stirs me: the amplification of that which concerns your own representative group and the downplay (if not total denial) of that which you, often subconsciously, project upon others.
Prejudice can range from nearly harmless to the most visceral. On one end is the strictly rhetoric prejudice, if not the subconscious. Elsewhere we find the visceral kind, often desirous of retribution if not extermination.
Thankfully, the overwhelming majority treads the former.
Mobile device escapism.
A severe populace doesn’t maintain full presence in a physical interaction: attention scattered, digital device manifest, attention divided between realms. I try to evade such interactions.
Once the epidemic attains the overwhelming population majority, if not yet lobotomized, I must surely have withdrawn into the wild.
Make no wrong. Many of these triggers represent severe malice. And yet what I wouldn’t give to eradicate futile emotion.
Questions, comments? Connect.