Legends of Windemere

I’m making a jump from one topic to another in here, so prepare for the bumpy bridge.

Recently, a friend revealed that his wife is pregnant and he’s gearing up to be a first time father.  Congrats were made along with a few jokes and the offer of advice whenever he had a question.  Being a voracious reader, he got a book on what to expect.  The result was this:

Hagrid

Like many of us, he had a surge of panic and then ranted about the book.  It was all bad news and worst case scenarios.  In fact, I realized that most sites and books I looked at were the same.  Miscarriages, birth complications, newborn diseases, SIDS, lack of sleep, and the whole bad news parade.  Nothing about the joy of holding your child for the first time, the comedy of diaper changes, advice on how to protect your furniture, and just useful stuff.  It’s like the only thing we can do as a society is drive a person into a panic and think that’s helping.  Nobody makes good decisions when in this state.  It’s where mistakes and paranoia appear, so why do we do this?

The story ended happily when my friend giving up on the book and getting his vengeance with a 1-star review.  Definitely a lot more relaxed since then and that’s how this stage of life should be.  Be aware of the potential problems, but don’t let them overshadow the positive stuff.  Let’s be honest here.  Most children end up being exceptions to half the rules you read about.  I was warned about my son not sleeping through the night, but that was never an issue.  He never napped, so he conked out for 3-4 hours stints almost every night.  Just happened that way because, this is important, every child is a unique individual.  No matter what standardized tests try to say.

Now my friend’s plight got me thinking about my own parental thoughts.  Mostly I’ve been looking at the world that I’m raising my son into.  People are probably already sensing where this is going.  Something that has been grinding down my mood and prolonging this bout of blues is that everything is so angry and hateful.  The news is filled with negativity and people are hurling venom all across the Internet.  Is this something new or did social media and 24 hour news merely make us more aware of a pre-existing issue?  All I know for sure is that I’ve seen friendships end before of this childish shit.  It’s become a contest to see who can kick each other in the balls the hardest.  Thing about that is both sides end up in severe pain and infertile.

I’ve seen a lot of fights and heated discussions with a few sensible ones surprising the crap out of me.  Yet, there’s a question I have in regards to the hate that is spilling out into the public psyche.  There’s a toxicity in the air that is truly frightening and turning one person against another for reasons that might not even be real.  Each side points at the other and thinks eliminating them will solve the problem.  Compromise is seen as weakness while hatred has become an acceptable weapon.  As an author, I know words are powerful and foul ones are being spewed without a thought of the consequences.  This is the world that I’ve brought my son into and there’s no telling what it will become.  It all comes down to this one question though:

Can we get rid of the hate without creating more hate?

Let’s be honest here.  The poisonous genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back inside.  You can’t say what is being said and then go back to normalcy as if it never happened.  Words that are said in an instant can linger for the rest of your life, especially these days.  So, where do we go from here?  Can anybody really think that their side will win and the other will suddenly go along after everything that has been said?  Doubtful, which means you’re going to have more animosity brewing and I’m scared to find out what happens when that finally hits the breaking point.  It isn’t what you see now.  Trust me when I say that the hatred is driving us toward something a lot worse.

This is probably the most political I’ll get here and I’m rather nervous about doing it in the first place.  Just needed to vent.  Tomorrow will be the usual goal post.  I shall end with a meme that has a typo:

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