Rant!

I don’t often go on tangents, at least not publicly, but today something has hit me really hard. I’m going to try to keep this organized so I don’t go chasing rabbits all over the place, but here goes. Our world feels like it’s on the brink of a revolution. With so much division, hatred, and vitriol spewing from every direction, it is very hard to not fall into that same trap and respond in kind. As someone who suffers from depression and anxiety, it is a constant fight to keep my headspace in the positive, so watching as the world events fly across my screen is extremely difficult. I know that so many others find frustration with it as well and I know I am not the only one carrying this same opinion. With as much as I would love to disconnect from social media and the outside world, I know that doing so would not solve anything. The problems will still be there, I would just be blinding myself to them.

 

While detaching myself from the world would help with my overall sanity, it wouldn’t diminish what is still going on outside of my front door. I wouldn’t be able to try to reach out to the internet and offer as many people as I can a hand up. Isn’t that what we were taught to do? Treat others as we would have them treat us? I know that I would love someone to offer me a helping hand when I need it. So anytime I get on my facebook account and see so many of my friends and family dehumanizing and bashing those who disagree with them, I am left with a bitter feeling that makes me want to respond with an equally divisive comment. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is tempted to fall into the negativity trap when faced with it.

 

Now you might be wondering how a rant about current events would have any place in a history blog, but there are historical implications at work here. We go through a cycle where society slowly rolls down a steep hill, gaining momentum while we are given a great view of our world’s economy and political spectrum starting to fall apart. Once society hits the bottom, it picks itself back up, brushes itself off, and puts itself back together while vowing to never fall down that hill again. But it does. We do. We are constantly rolling down that hill and repeating the cycle over, and over, and over again. After we pull ourselves back together, we live happily for a while, until we forget the mistakes we made that led us to fall down, to begin with. We see this happening all through History, rinsing and repeated, letting that wheel turn with our complacency.

 

So much of our conflict stems from the inability to accept people who disagree with us, who have different religious beliefs, whose skin is a different color from ours, who loves someone of the same gender, whose mind does not match his or her body, and the list goes on. If we, as a society, could grasp the understanding that acceptance is one of the powerful words in our vocabulary. Acceptance is what leads to peaceful conflict resolutions. Acceptance is what pulls us away from the hate dwelling in our hearts. Acceptance is what leads to a better understanding of the people we live with and the world we live in. If we could only let go of that selfish mentality that we seem to hold onto so desperately, then maybe we can finally learn how to stop that cycle that leads to that constant state of revolution and redundancy that we are constantly faced with.

 

I was driven to this rant after seeing supposed Christians applauding the death of Stephen Hawking, saying he was an evil man who lied to our children. They hoped that he would burn in Hell for his perceived crimes. What crimes? His understanding of Science, which so many people see as the antithesis of Religion. He was able to see all of the Scientific proof of evolution and understood how it pertained to the creation of our universe, and our world. But to see the pure evil hatred being thrown about by these “Christians” shook me. While not religious myself, I was raised in a Christian family and was taught about how God is Love and how we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This leaves me questioning how those people can still call themselves true Christians when they spew nothing but hate (I plan to further dive into this in Sunday’s blog).

 

The hypocrisy in this world astounds me and makes it so hard to remain positive without bitterness encroaching upon my sanity. I am trying, though, and fighting as hard as I can to stay true to my own ideals, hopes, and goals.