What Have We Become? #MFRWAuthor

I’ve thought about this for a while, and haven’t been able to bring myself to blogging until I shared my concerns. This started with a meme showing up on my FaceBook feed, comparing the Melania and I think Ivanka Trump to two woman, much more casually presented. I had to dig a bit to find out these other two women were Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.

Comments followed. Ugly, ignorant, misogynistic comments based on a cleverly presented set of photos. Of course no one addressed anything beyond surface appearance. Why bother considering intelligence or moral value for any of the four women? And it got uglier.

Okay, so I can sort of understand the driving need to criticize Hillary Clinton. She’s been a favorite target for a while now, for any number of reasons. But to attack her daughter, who has pretty much just gotten on with her life? Why? And if these people, many of whom are FaceBook ‘Friends’ were so vicious with these images, what would they have to say about the pictures I post of me with my dogs? I’m certainly not in the same stratosphere as any of these women, either in shape or presentation. Nor are most of us.

So I was in a butt hurt frame of mind. Until eleven people were killed in a synagogue. Two more shot in a grocery store, because the gunman couldn’t get into the local church. A journalist was brutally murdered in Turkey. And so on.

And…WHY? Okay, yeah brutality through the ages etc etc etc. But we should hope by the time we go into space and discover and create we could maybe, I dunno, be BETTER people? Maybe evolve a bit?

I pretty much forgot my original concerns and instead thought about the ongoing, increasing level of, well, nastiness in our world. Petty, snipey, self serving, bullying, misogynistic…the list is endless, isn’t it? Sure it’s been around forever. I get that. I don’t have to like it but I understand.

But then, I hear about people who have become better. About the Muslims who reached out to help the Jewish synagogue. About the people who have reached out, helped, embraced and shared support. I see a turtle picked up from the road and taken to a safer place. I see motorcycle riders blocking traffic to allow an elderly woman to cross the road. Random and not so random acts of kindness, people going about their lives looking out for others.

What have we become? We’re the same complex, simple, wise, foolish, kind, angry, sweet, confusing people we have always been. It’s up to us to choose which direction we want to take, and encourage those around us to follow that positive road.

Don’t forget to call someone you haven’t talked to for a while. Hold the door open, tell a stranger that life IS good.