Prospective Retrospective Perspective

The other day, I realised that I could lose myself for hours in r/AskReddit, reading people’s stories on various things. It’s actually a pretty great place to go for writing prompts, I’d wager. But it’s also great for some perspective, at times. The other day on the website, for example, somebody asked users over fifty what the greatest decade of their life had been so far.

Hardly any of them said it was their twenties.

I mean, obviously I know that life goes on after university, but the wall of uncertainty is, at least for me, so large that it’s hard to see into the future. Job interviewers will often ask you where you see yourself in ten years, to which I’m sure many people’s honest answer would be “You think I’d be here if I knew?” Depending, of course, on whether it was their dream job or not.

The thing is that many young people, like me, don’t typically dedicate much thought to old age. And I suppose that by the time I’m in my twilight years, I’ll have either forgotten all about this blog or have no means of access to it; if I do, I may have great intrigue on discovering what twenty year old me thought of the world with such great naivete. I’d be tempted to put a silly message to my future self here, but that kind of stuff usually never ends up being read, anyway.

I find that Reddit thread greatly inspiring. It’s reminded me that even if I screw up now, I have an entire lifetime to put things right, no matter how wrong, and to readjust. I also find it somewhat worrying, however, to find the odd comment saying “Life has been a downhill spiral since my twenties”. Obviously, life is a different experience for everyone, but I’d desperately like not to be that person. So I guess that I’d better make that the challenge of the present before it becomes a lament of the past.

Oh, and sorry for the blog title. I couldn’t resist.

Outrage Culture

There is a very, very thin line between being legitimately annoyed at outrage culture and justifying ignorance with it, so allow me to make one thing immediately clear: the outrage which irks me at this point is not typically to do with people in a poor place being legitimately angry with the government. There is a time and a reason for voices to be heard, and subjects such as mental health, the refugee crisis, and all of that kind of stuff needs to be made as loud as possible if it is to be changed.

The kind of outrage culture I’m on about is in the everyday. They redesigned a website you commonly used? This is an outrage! Something isn’t working exactly properly? This is an outrage! Somebody messed up? They cannot be forgiven for this is an outrage!

I believe I’ve already stated that anger and hatred is seeping into our culture like a plague. Add anonymity and mob mentality into that mix and you’ve got a dangerous bag of self-justified people, mostly good at heart but for the moment, blinded by their own rage. Put aside your anger towards David Cameron for a moment – difficult, I know, but try it – and imagine being in his boots right now. Imagine that everywhere you turn, people are insulting you and baying for your blood. You look online and find threats of violence against you and your family. You post a tweet containing one sentence which gets picked apart and spat on by an army of people who can hide behind a wall of anonymity you don’t have the privilege of. If we are to understand that which seeks to do us harm, we have to put ourselves in their perspective, and sometimes it’s not a pretty place. It doesn’t justify what they’re doing, but sometimes it makes things make a little more sense.

I’m not just talking about famous people, either. People are visceral to one another, passive-aggressively if you’re lucky, messaging you with threats if you’re not. Because you’ve said something which has caused an outrage. How couldn’t you have known this? How could you be so fucking stupid? You’ll never be able to take back what you said; it’s an outrage!

Calm down. If you disagree with somebody, tell them why in a calm and measured way. Do not let your heart outspeak your mind, and remember that all people can be hurt by you as much as you are hurt by them.