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like a moth to a flame burned by the fire

So one of my accidental New Year's resolutions (because the great reorganization project is still buried under piles of books and papers) was to cut out excessive negativity and anger from my life. This is not a Buddhist thing. I am a terrible meat-eating and greedy person. Just more a blood pressure thing. I just get too upset over stuff. And I tend to ruminate on it. And I tend to talk about it, and TD is sick of hearing about it too. Why get upset when I can avoid being upset? It's not even upset for a good reason, like say political mobilization. Mostly it's just being appalled at what jerks and idiots people can be. There's some social function in being appalled, because that means we feel some sort of norm violation or we reinforce some sense of ethics, like when I am appalled that people with herpes do not inform their partners and instead just go at it. But it's not like I can do anything about it. And continuing to read more of the same doesn't do much to benefit that social function, but rather just makes me really mad and upset about something and then I become negative too. And I am one of the smiliest, loveliest people you will ever meet! This is why I don't read that Roissy guy. Just don't feed the hate, and don't feed the attention these hateful bloggers thrive on.

So I Leechblocked a bunch of sites: blogs of people I can't stand to read (whether because of disagreement with everything they say, their narcissistic negativity, or both) and Jezebel and Jezebel bloggers. Unfortunately, other sites I read (like XX Factor) link to Jezebel. Or the bloggers I stopped reading seem to get into flame wars with the bloggers I do like to read. A flame war ensues, and I find myself in the curious in-between position, but clearly I am not one to be indecisive, and so I do choose sides, but because I don't want to get in a flame war, I don't say anything even though I'd like to. Sigh. Sometimes, there's just no getting away from it all. I suppose I could stop blogging or reading blogs. Sometimes, I think I should.

Full post as published by Law and Letters on March 12, 2009 (boomark / email).