Sunday, October 31, 2021

Don't Be Such An Easy Mark

Roughly a half decade or so ago, I started noticing that everyone began to believe that their political opinions were the most interesting thing about them. Achieving equanimity isn’t just a natural state, but a choice. These days, it very much involves swimming against the tide. You nearly have to choose not to get riled by all the manufactured outrages, Kabuki-theater conflagrations, and faux-Twitter fights that are conducted by catty people, for catty people. The rage merchants abound, and are all too willing to make a buck from stoking your anger and wet-nursing your resentments over ‘issues’ you’d never even heard of five minutes prior. Don’t be such an easy mark.

...beware of the man who is too convinced of his own righteousness.

-- Matt Labash, Anger Fever

I recommend the whole Anger Fever piece from which this observation came.