Why let your enemy control you by choosing to listen to his hate?

By David McElroy · July 7, 2015

The man ran over to the television and got close so he could hear what was being said. I was watching the scene unfold in a restaurant where a television is permanently set to show cable news.

“He just makes me so mad,” the man muttered with intensity. I wasn’t sure whether he was talking to me or to himself, but he was clearly referring to the media personality talking on the screen. He was upset, but the flickering image commanded his attention and his eyes were glued to the TV.

I watched him for a minute and finally asked the obvious question.

“If he makes you so angry, why do you listen so closely to him?” I asked. “Why not just ignore him?”

The man first looked puzzled, as though I had asked him a trick question. Then he finally responded with the tone one might use when explaining something obvious to a child.

“Well, he’s on television,” the man said. “He doesn’t like [my political group] and he’s always saying negative things about us. He’s on the news. I have to know what he says — because he makes me furious!”

I didn’t continue the conversation, partly because the man was fully absorbed with his hatred for the person he was watching on screen and partly because he clearly wasn’t interested in my line of thought. But I’ve been thinking about it now for several days, and it seems as though our media culture has created an entire country of people who hang on every word of the people they hate — just so they can reinforce their hatred.

I’ve known progressives who listen to Rush Limbaugh just to rail against the bombastic conservative radio host. I’ve known conservatives who know the faces of people such as Jesse Jackson and Nancy Pelosi better than they know their own children’s faces, because they spend so much time listening to the words of these people who they hate.

And all the people who do this — or even more moderate versions of it — have handed control of their own emotions over to their enemies.

There are a lot of things in this world to be outraged about, but if you can’t do anything about an outrage, you’re wasting your time to pay attention to it. I still let some things get to me — mostly incompetent journalism and random daily abuse of the English language — but I’m getting better about ignoring things I can’t change. Staying away from news media and focusing on things which you actually do control can relieve a lot of stress. It won’t fix the world, but neither will your rage and frustration.

The job of the news media is to attract an audience. Television in particular thrives on conflict. So news will play up conflicts and magnify the angry extremists who are willing to to to war with one another. It doesn’t accomplish anything other than get millions of people angry — but it drives up ratings and makes money for their bosses.

Most people who care abut politics already have a pretty good idea of which teams they’re rooting for and against. They already know who they hate. So why listen to those media personalities — politicians or talking heads — who you know are going to make you angry?

What are you trying to accomplish? You know you’re not changing anything by watching. Are you just entertaining yourself? Is this the sort of garbage you want to fill your mind with? Do you want to go through life full of anger?

When you listen to these people who make you angry, you are giving them control over part of your life. Why give them that power?

The time we have in this life is far too short. We have time for only a limited number of things. It’s all a tradeoff. The time you spend filling your mind with things that make you angry — and railing against people who don’t even know you exist — is time you can’t spend with people you love or with accomplishing your goals.

It’s your choice how you spend your time. If you enjoy being angry — and you enjoy it more than doing things that make you feel love or joy — that’s your business.

But don’t just fill your mind with this garbage by default. Consider that maybe you’re better off ignoring this media freak show. You might be happier if you take control of your life back from the people who are making you angry.

Share on Social Networks

I received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine Monday — and I’m happy to report that I’m neither dead nor a zombie controlled by Bill Gates and Co. Eligibility was recently opened in Alabama to everyone who’s 16 or older, so I signed up for the Pfizer vaccine at a site run by a local university. I know this is a political issue for a lot of people, but that honestly baffles me. We can disagree about whether such a vaccine should be mandatory — which I’m against — but as a voluntary choice, it seems like an easy choice now that it’s been safely given to millions of people. Is it a perfect preventative? Of course not. But the decision seemed obvious to me when looking at the statistics and evidence. I haven’t had any of the side effects that some people have experienced, but that’s supposed to be more of an issue after the second dose, which I’ll get on May 3. In the meantime, I’ll let you know if I grow a third arm — or if the secret microchip kicks in and someone starts trying to control me remotely. All kidding aside, getting the vaccine seems like a rational voluntary choice to me.

I get a lot of email from readers. Some of it is fascinating and useful. Some of it is full of confessions that people want to share with a stranger. Some people write to ask advice. What’s really surprising, though, is the small percentage that seems to come from mentally unbalanced people. When I started using the metaphor about being an alien — the tagline at the top of each page here — it never occurred to me that I’d start hearing from people who took it seriously. But every few months, I get a strange email — such as the one above from a few months back — from someone who seems to think I’m claiming to be an actual alien. The first time it happened, I laughed. By the time it became a semi-regular thing, I was simply appalled. For the record, I can provide no proof that I’m an alien, because … well … it’s just a metaphor. I do feel like an alien among human beings, but as far as I know, I’m just as earthbound as you are. It’s just a metaphor. Honest. Or at least, that’s what my lizard-beast overlords told me to say.

After Tampa Bay, Fla., musician Colt Clark had all of his gigs canceled last year for months on end, the entire family felt trapped at home as most of the world was on quarantine lockdown. His wife, Aubree, had an idea that would let Colt make music and involve the whole family in making music videos to share with their friends and family on Facebook. Aubree is a photographer and homeschooling mom to a daughter and two sons, who range in age from 6 to 11. After their friends started asking to share the videos, they made the performances public — and a few of them are now on YouTube, where they go by the name of Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids. The younger son, Becket, is on drums. The older boy, Cash, plays keyboards, strings and guitars. Dad supplies lead vocals and plays guitar, while 6-year-old Bellamy mostly dances but sometimes does backup vocals. There’s even a dog who makes an occasional appearance. The Clark family has just raised the bar for what I need to create with my future children. And best of all, they seem to be having a great time together. I hope they make you as happy as they make me.

Have you ever wondered how the social media world works for so-called “influencers”? I find it comical, so I thought I’d share with you. I frequently get offers such as what I’m about to describe. And if I’m getting such offers — as a relative nobody in the online world — you can only imagine what people with huge audiences are offered. It starts with an email appealing to my ego: “We came across your online presence and we LOVE your style. We’d love to have you as one of our Brand Ambassadors. To celebrate our new [Brand Name] collection, we want to give you a FREE Watch so you can post a picture of you wearing it and drive more exposure to our brand.” Did you hear that? They love me. They want me to be seen wearing their cheap $59 watch so other people will think, “If this amazing influencer wears that, surely I should buy one.” They even offer me commissions on the watches sold from people clicking from my site. So the next time you see some alleged “influencer” touting something online or on social media, remember that this is what it’s probably all about. It’s laughable.

Modern culture is going insane. The latest evidence comes from the effort to redefine children’s author Dr. Seuss as a racist whose books should be banned. Why? Because a few images in those books don’t meet modern political standards. The drawing you see here is one of those “dangerously racist images,” and it comes from the Dr. Seuss classic, “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” The book catalogs all the wild diversity seen by a child on one street, including the offending drawing of a Chinese boy. What’s racist about it? Apparently, it was racist to show the boy eating rice, wearing a funny hat, using chopsticks and (worst of all) having eyes represented by a slit. (The bearded man near him has dots for eyes, but that’s apparently OK.) In other words, the stereotypes are considered racist today. (Oddly, the culture warriors who fret over such things are never concerned if a white southerner is depicted as ignorant trash living in a trailer. Some stereotypes are great, especially if the left hates those people anyway.) Theodore Geisel — the name of the real-life Dr. Seuss — was a product of his time and nobody at that time would have seen any of this as racist. Using stereotypes and exaggerations is how artists depict differences in simple ways. You can argue that it’s better to achieve the end result in a different way, but it’s insane to pretend that everybody from the past should have his work erased because it doesn’t match the preferences of modern leftists. Unfortunately, the company that publishes Dr. Seuss books has caved to the insane people — and six of his popular works will no longer be published. The world has simply gone insane.

Related Posts