Dear Outraged, Again,
I have had a few positive models for my behavior, but I have oodly scads of anti-models. People I don't want to act, look, or sound like. This is troubling enough, this fact, but it isn't what I want to tell you about. What I want to tell you about is this way that we kind of search out, hunt for, things to be outraged over. I think we do this. Like we like to go on the scary ride at the amusement park, or watch the scary movie (uh, well, actually I don't like to do those things, but I think it is still valid) to feel a little thrill. We look for things to be angry at or to hate because it feels like something, at least. And no one knows how the microwave love works anyway, so hate is a lot easier to work with. I know I do this, so I don't say this to suggest that you should change and I should not; I say it so that maybe we can consider our outrage more thoughtfully. No, no, I don't mean eliminate it entirely, I mean, maybe we want to reach for it less often.
I realize we will need some kind of medical patch, or substitute, like morphine, to help us to kick it. I might try to substitute this kind of reaction: Isn't that funny? Isn't it peculiar that such an outrageous thing just happened? Isn't it interesting, in an cultural anthropology way?
Oh, and yet. I suppose maybe it doesn't even matter to try to improve oneself in this self-absorbed kind of way; we all lead these double lives: One life is Hi, how are you, I am fine; and the other life is I will be crying the minute I get home today, and tomorrow, too, and the day after that.
