Lessons From Lucy by Dave Barry

Author:Dave Barry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Let Go of Your Anger,

Unless It’s About Something Really Important,

Which It Almost Never Is.

I definitely need to learn this lesson. I need to relax, to chill, to forgive and forget (or at least to forget). I need to inhale deeply and exhale slowly, to let all that rage and stress and tension flow out of me like some kind of (I apologize for this image) emotional enema.

You know who else needs to learn this lesson?

Everybody.

I’m serious. The whole world is way too angry these days. If you want proof of that, don some eye protection and take a look at Facebook.

In case you just woke up from a coma, I should explain that Facebook is a social-media website that literally billions of people visit regularly for the purpose of making some person named Mark Zuckerberg insanely rich. When you join Facebook, you get your own virtual “page,” on which you can post text, photos, videos, links to articles, etc. Then you become “friends” with other Facebook users; you and your friends can see and interact with each other’s pages.

I joined Facebook because I have a lot of relatives and friends on there, and it’s a good way to maintain human relationships without having to see or talk to other humans. You can read about people’s life milestones, such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and deaths. You can see pictures of their kids, grandkids, vacations, pets, wounds,20 etc. You also see a lot of pictures of food, because some people apparently view everything they eat as a life milestone.

My favorite thing about Facebook is that you can express your reactions to people’s life events simply by clicking on emojis, which are little face drawings depicting emotions. As I write this, the available emojis are “Like,” “Love,” “Haha,” “Wow,” “Sad” and “Angry.” So if one of your Facebook friends has a death in the family, instead of taking on the tedious chore of writing a letter or calling, you can simply click on “Sad,” and just like that, bada-bing bada-boom, you have registered your sincere emotional reaction, and you can get on with your busy life.

OK, so it’s kind of perfunctory. But it’s better than nothing, and it has enabled me, a pathologically detached person (see the first Lesson from Lucy), to stay at least loosely in touch with people I care about. That’s why I go on Facebook. I like the social aspect.

What I dislike is the political aspect, which infests Facebook like a toxic mold. I don’t go to Facebook for politics. I’d rather see wounds.

I’m not saying people don’t have a right to express their political views. Obviously they have the right to say whatever they want, and the right to not care what I think about it. I just wish people wouldn’t use Facebook for politics. I get politics spewed at me almost everywhere else I go on the Internet. I’d rather not also see it sandwiched between pictures of people’s grandkids.

It’s not the specific political views I dislike; it’s the tone.

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