The cesspool is deep and toxic, but I’m to blame if I remain there

How long can a human being stew in a cesspool of hatred and anger and meanness before he’s permanently changed? How long until he’s so full of bitterness that there’s no love left in his heart?

We’re seeing that happen in real time in our society right now. Different people are responding in very different ways. Some good people are becoming so bitter and angry that they can focus on almost nothing so much as hurting the people they see as the enemy. Some people who were already angry and unloving are now so full of hatred that they spew bitter vitriol constantly.

And some are so horrified to find themselves in this cesspool that they’re almost despondent about what they’re experiencing.

I’ve been trying for years now to process what I’ve been feeling about the toxic online culture that we’ve created for ourselves. I’ve gone back and forth about what to do about it, but I haven’t really done much about it. I’ve been left ambivalent, because I can’t live with what I experience here — but I’ve found it impossible to truly pull away from it.

Whatever this thing has become, I can’t escape blame. I want to point fingers. I want to say, “Look at what you’ve done!” But in my heart, I know I’ve been a part of it, too. I’m to blame.

I try not to look at the cesspool.

I tell myself that I can be part of this toxic stew without letting it damage me. But there are times when it simply makes me feel defeated. Tonight is one of those times.

I just found myself scrolling through Facebook’s feed and looking at the things other people were posting. Those things depressed me. At times, I feel an urge to fight against what I see and somehow change it. Tonight, I just felt an overwhelming sadness — and a feeling that I was drowning in tides of bitterness and hatred.

Most of what is promoted to me — by Facebook’s algorithm — is filled with negativity and anger. I understand that. I know that there are probably a lot of positive and loving things that I simply don’t see, because the algorithm doesn’t think those things are likely to bring “engagement.”

I know all of that, but what I see is a tidal wave of toxic sludge.

I see people who are angry about one thing or another and becoming obsessed with it. Even if they’re right about the underlying issue, the obsessive hatred about the issue wounds that person and it spreads the bitterness through exaggeration and lies.

Strangely, the same anger and bitterness can infect people who believe they are completely opposite of one another.

Republicans can post bitter anger and lies about Democrats. And Democrats can post wildly exaggerated and bitter attacks and lies about Republicans.

Men who have been hurt by women — and who see themselves as victims — post every possible incident they can find of women who have done terrible and evil things. Women who have been hurt by men — and are convinced the world is filled with misogyny — post every example of men who have done evil and hurtful things.

People of all sorts of religious beliefs — Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, etc. — post every negative thing they can find about whatever group they hold responsible for problems in the world. Almost every one of them is full of righteous anger about “those terrible people” who disagree with them.

Even if every one of these bitter and angry posts were true and fair — which isn’t the case — the selective painting of pictures ends up presenting a bitter and angry lie.

And the bitterness doesn’t just eat away at the people who read this constant negative propaganda. It eats away at the hearts and minds of the people who collect the material and post it.

There was a time when I did my own version of this. I posted — and often wrote about — every incident that I ran across that showed my own political or social enemies in a bad light. Was I scrupulously accurate in what I reported? Yes, I was. But was the picture always fair? No, it wasn’t.

I go through periods when I swear to myself that I’m not going to post negative things, even about people who I believe are damaging all of us. But I always end up indulging my passion for righteous anger.

Even when I am 100 percent honest, 100 percent accurate and 100 percent fair — I have to ask myself whether I’m a part of the problem or a part of the solution.

Am I ultimately making the cesspool even worse? Sometimes, I fear that I am, at least in my own small way.

There’s a story told about Jesus in a couple of the gospels in which he teaches people that they should pluck out their own eyes if their eyes are causing them to sin. When I was young, that story was confusing to me. I eventually just took it as hyperbole about the need to “flee from sin.”

But I find myself thinking that there’s another way to apply that, too. It seems to me that this can apply equally to things in our lives, even things that we’ve come to see as just an everyday part of our normal environment.

It seems to me that my experience living in the online cesspool — and experiencing the anger and bitterness there — tends to cause me to slowly become someone I don’t want to be. It causes me to be less loving and less kind. And if that is true, wouldn’t it seem reasonable to remove from my life whatever is causing me to stumble in this way?

A lot of my friends are deeply into anger and bitterness that they can’t even admit to themselves. They’re not willing to admit how much they have come to hate certain people and certain groups. I say this not in anger or judgment, but with the deep realization that I can go down precisely the path they’ve taken.

The only thing I have going for me is that I’m aware of what the cesspool does to me. So the question is what I’m going to do about it.

I can’t change other people. I can’t change the cesspool, either. But I can decide how I’m going to react to it — and how I can pluck this bitterness and hatred out of my life.

I’m not ready to say what I’m going to do. But what I can say is that I am living in a cesspool that eats away at me like a corrosive acid. It makes it harder to love others. It makes me feel anger and bitterness. It makes me want to hate people.

That isn’t who I want to be. And if I’m serious about living up to my values — and loving people instead of becoming bitter — I have a responsibility to change my own behavior.

I’d like to point fingers at you. I’d like to point fingers at every person who’s posting anger and bitterness and lies and exaggerations. But I can’t do that.

I’m the one who’s responsible for what I allow into my own life — and I’m the only one who can change it.