I See Villains. Time for a Gut Check

I recently caught myself failing miserably at a suggestion a friend made: “Don’t assume villainy where it is merely different goals.”

My current anxiety level, measured by the anxiety rainbow, is red, fueled by anger over how people carry on amid the pandemic. Everything has become political to my eye, especially in those spaces I inhabit with people wearing their masks below their noses or not at all and the name-calling and other general nastiness on social media.

It makes me angry, which leads to self-righteousness, which leaves me feeling like a prick. I’m doing a gut check about it, because the last thing the world needs right now is another asshole.

Mood Music:

Seeing villains everywhere is unproductive and stokes hateful feelings. I don’t like being this way.

But I can’t tell you I’ll stop now that the epiphany has struck.

Believing as I do that the pandemic is real and knowing people who have been infected with COVID-19 and killed by it, I take all necessary precautions and feel other people should do the same, as a civic duty. When they don’t, I can’t help but see them as selfish pricks willing to put others at risk.

My friend is right. Much of the time, the people around us have conflicting goals but not a desire to do someone ill. People have a lot of concerns rattling around in their brains and why they do certain things can’t always be explained in black and white. We need to do a better job listening to each other.

Not seeing each other as villains is a good place to start.

Yet here I sit, unable to do so. I can’t stop feeling the way I feel. This pandemic has made me a far less patient, much angrier individual. I know I’m not the only one.

Am I weak and self-righteous, unable to get past my biases and giving in to blind rage? Is there a hole in the concept of not making someone out to be a villain?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I need to look deeper inside myself for a better way to manage my emotions and deal with people.

The work continues.