Offensive uncertainty

The thing about social media is that you get to know mainly of what offends people, what outrages them. After a few hours on it, you get a certain impression about human beings as being compressed cans of outrage in search of a reason to vent; as frowns of displeasure trawling the world for reasons to be displeased.

It is a given, of course, that people assume offense in anything that others do if those others belong to a different belief system from their own. Also, of course, if you dislike a person he can scarcely draw a breath without offending you. Now these are areas where the offense arises because you are certain about the other person...the blackest of villains who God, in an off moment, inflicted on Earth.

In the bygone days, when interactions between people involved swords and maces and such as often as they involved words, showing open hands in one form or the other was an indication that, this time, the intention was to interact using words. Thus, empty hand = no weapon = peaceful intent. Manners, you see, started off like that. When you are uncertain about the other person, you had these prescribed ritual actions which indicated his intentions.

And, thus, starts the taking of offense because of uncertainty. You are the boss, you walk in to the office and some people do not wish you. "How dare they disrespect me?" comes from the uncertainty of whether you are truly respected or not. True, humanity being the perverse creation that it is (God must have created the whole damn lot of us in an off moment, it seems to me at times), people DO try to push their boundaries all the time but if YOU walk around in a perpetual haze of outrage at that chap not noticing you walk behind his desk and this chap peering into his laptop instead of looking reverently at you and so on...well, THAT outrage comes from your own uncertainty. Impostor syndrome or some such learned label, I think, applies.

Where then does this come from, you think? "You do not even care to remember our anniversary," and so on? The uncertainty about whether the other person really cares for you or not, right? It is not that date, it is how important she thinks you are in her life which is the issue there.

The outrage about a friend not coming over to your wedding, about a colleague not inviting you to a party which you could not have gone to anyway, about your child not opting for the choice of course that you suggest...how much of it is outrage because you are uncertain about your importance in their life?

And so, after years of diligent practice, you now get offended and outraged by the form of things with scant regard to the substance. Like a spouse caring two hoots about being really loved as long as the anniversary gift arrives!

But, then, what's the use of substance? It's the form that can be shared on Instagram!