A few weeks ago, seemingly without warning, I wound up closing down my Facebook account.

Now this isn’t the first time I’ve taken a break from the whole social networking thing (although that mostly means regulating myself to Twitter, Google+, or, at the first time around, trying out something called Ello, which I just had to look up what it was called because that’s how long I paid attention to it). Before I at least gave warning first, and it was with the (broken) promise to myself that I would take the time away to work on my personal goal of writing more.

But last month, it was different. I had reached a limit on what I could consume of the Internet in that moment in time. I’d gone to one too many list of comments after an article on a blog site and, well, I hate to meme myself, but I literally just couldn’t even.

This whole thing can probably be attributed to my own fragile state of mental health above any other single thing, and rightly so. I was already in a funk. I’d stopped going to my regular Friday night hangout with friends just a month or so before. Not because of a single thing anyone there had done. I just wasn’t feeling myself. Or maybe I just wasn’t liking myself. Or maybe it was more, or less. I don’t really know.

What I do know is that, on this particular day, when I closed things up without saying, “Hey, everyone, I’m okay. I just need to take a break for a little bit,” but instead just went into the wind, it was because I’d reached a bit of a meltdown. Because, by my own nature, I am someone that tries to see things from as many perspectives as possible. I try to give other people the benefit of the doubt that, even though we don’t always agree, they’re coming at the opposite conclusions of mine with still the very best of intentions and well-meaning. If I just opened myself up a little bit more, I could see why they felt the way that they did, and even if I didn’t still fundamentally agree with them, I could at least respect them as human beings. It wasn’t a battle.

But that day I really could no longer see it that way. I felt like, honestly, there are just people out there screaming hateful things, arguing to argue, being mean to be mean. Naively, I felt like the Internet, this great place where people from all over the world could meet up and share ideas and feel closer, that magical connection… it had let me down.

Now, really, the only person who was letting me down was me. Because I wasn’t able to handle it any more. I was failing in the one thing I felt was the best thing about me. I’m even-tempered. I’m a good person. I love people enough to just move on.

I couldn’t move on. I wanted to engage. I wanted to attack. I wanted to make people see. But see what? That’s the real question.

The blog I was on that was the catalyst for my disengagement was only a symptom. It couldn’t been any place online. Because it actually was literally every place online. It was happening to me here, but it was also creeping up on me on the comic sites I follow, on Facebook where I’m normally only surrounded by my friends and family and a somewhat vast amount of people that I just genuinely admire.

Again, I’m aware. The problem was me. But the catalyst was everything.

When I was younger, very early twenties, I had a couple friends that owned a ferret.

The thing about ferrets, like any number of animals, is that they smell. And when I would go over to my friends’ place, I’d walk in and there would be the obvious odor of “these people have ferrets.” Well, the first time I didn’t know it was a ferret. I just knew that it smelled like something. Something strong, and musky, and slightly “ohgodwhatisthatsmell?”

Their house was clean. They weren’t slobs. The ferret was well taken care of too. Its cage was cleaned regularly. It was well-groomed. It just had a scent to it because they just do.

But after a little while in the house (and I was there a lot), you stopped smelling it. I mean, it was still there. But it was way less noticeable. Less offensive to the olfactory senses. Sure, if you left and didn’t come by for a couple weeks you’d walk back in and go, “oh yes! Ferrets!” But mostly you got over it. Because you can get used to just about anything. Especially when it’s your place.

We have two cats, my wife and I. And I try to stay on top of cleaning up after them. But we’re not the best housekeepers in general, so while I clean the litter boxes every day and I take care of the occasional mishap, the house still has a distinctive cat smell. Only I don’t smell it. Neither does my wife. But I’m sure anyone else that comes over, at least initially, they do.

I also had a very tight group of friends when I was a teenager, all of whom smoked. I didn’t (normally, although I tried to more than once). You would never get me to believe that any of my friends had poor hygiene or anything like that. But one time I tried on a friend’s favorite jean jacket, and it basically reeked of cigarette smoke. Only noticeable to me now because I was wearing it on my own skin. Any other time it wasn’t even a thought.

My point is, you spend enough time in something, you become desensitized to it. You can’t see the things that are off. You don’t smell the stink of it.

The blog I was at where I hit my wall, it was a place I didn’t frequent too often, but it was, in so many ways, a place that I should be more attached to. Because on the surface, we share a lot of the same ideals. About gender inequality. About abuse. About fandom. Things that I’m very passionate about. The whole site’s raison d’ĂȘtre matters on such an emotional level.

But I kind of detest it. Because, while I think it started out with great intentions, I’ve seen it deteriorate into a sliptstream of attacking every one and every thing, including many who are, for all intents and purposes, on their same side.

You can probably guess the site, but I don’t need to name it because it doesn’t matter. I can’t name a place or type of blog that this doesn’t happen. And that’s virtual. It happens in the real world too. All the time. It’s human nature.

If you have a group of friends, or a church, or a political group you’re a part of, or a place you hang out, or a work place where you chat over a water cooler (still a thing!), you’re just as likely to let certain things slip. And, in some cases, this is a great thing.

In your home, if you’re married, odds are the two of you are going to speak to one another about things and in ways that you wouldn’t anyone else. If you have a best friend, same sort of deal, but with some of the conversations changed (maybe). If you have a group of friends, same. These are safe places. You let your guard down. You become less P.C. maybe. More blunt. It’s not about disrespect, it’s about feeling like these are the people who don’t judge you. And if you disagree on something, it’s not going to wreck your life because these people accept you for who you are, like you accept them, and disagreements can be overcome.

If you gravitate towards religion, you might find that your church gives you similar feelings. You walk in, all these people have a like-minded philosophy towards life as you. You’ve got similar morals, similar beliefs. You all treat each other with a degree of respect almost automatically because you’re together in something. Something that’s both bigger than just any individual, but also very deeply held and inherent to who you are as a person. Now, replace a church with a social club, or a political rally, or a workout group, or any number of hundreds of different things. It’s all the same.

It’s also a bit dangerous.

Because if you’re talking one-on-one with your partner, or if you’re talking to your group of close friends, and you start spouting off something off-base, odds are one of them will wind up calling you on your bullshit. Again because the honesty is okay since, at the end of the day, you’re still going to be friends. You’re still going to be married. You may sleep on the couch, or you may go sulk in the corner for a while. But it’s a benefit to you that someone looks after you when you occasionally go off the rails.

The bigger the group though, the less likely that someone is going to speak up. Because it’s self-preservation. You’re in a room of two people, you feel like you can at least get your point across, right or wrong. Three people, the odds start to split. Five people, you better really have faith that you and these guys are buds. But thirty people, fifty people, a hundred people…. What happens if you gauge things wrong and they shun you? What if they kick you out? You lose your place. You get effectively marked. What if you went to work tomorrow and the guys in your office no longer invited you to lunch with them? What if you went to your gym, and the women you normally did your workouts with no longer wanted to associate with you? What if you got kicked out of your church?

True Story: That last one actually happened to my mother-in-law. She spoke up about something in her church group and she was asked to no longer come back. Aside from the fact that what she said was in line with my way of thinking, it was also one of the most courageous things I’d ever heard of. I know it tore her up being told she wasn’t no longer allowed there, because it meant so much to her to be there, so I don’t relish in it having happened. But I have such incredible pride in her for it.

So it’s sometimes safer to not speak up. It just makes sense. You and your peers are already alike in so many things, you’ve got so many views that are the same, the ones that don’t quite sync, it’s no big deal. Right?

Maybe. That’s up to you.

But how many of “this works, but this doesn’t” comparisons does it take for you to walk away? Do only the big things matter, no matter how many of the little things there are?

Here’s another one.

I love Jon Stewart. I mean, I watch him on The Daily Show, and I just can find nothing where I don’t agree with him. I really look up to the guy. He’s helped shape in me a desire to educate myself on politics, on world news, To seek out the truth as opposed to just listening to what reporters tell me. His disciples are also high on my list, like John Oliver and Stephen Colbert. I just never seem to disagree with them (or, in Colbert’s case, I agree with him by disagreeing with him). They’re just so… right!

Scary, huh? Putting so much trust in the hands of people who 1) I don’t actually know, and 2) are not, and have never claimed to be, infallible, and 3) really there to entertain more than to report or educate.

You know who I don’t really like all that much? Bill Maher.

Yeah, on the surface, he and I land on the same side on a lot of subjects politically. And I’ve also learned from him to be suspect of reporters, and to look into things myself. But in all honesty, I just don’t think he’s very funny. Or nice. He’s really kind of an asshole.

And he’s probably better for me than Jon Stewart.

Once you get past the (usually very lame) opening monologue on Real Time with Bill Maher, you then get him interviewing someone. Some story that’s probably not being talked about too much by enough people. And then he does the round table discussion, partway through where he brings out the “named guest” (although they’re all named, but this one ranks individually for some reason). And then he finishes up with New Rules and a rant, and this is normally a lot funnier and has more depth than the opener.

But the key part is the round table. Because Bill has people on there who call him on his bullshit. Granted, some of them come in with a whole bunch of their own bullshit themselves. It’s not in any way a hive mind. And I’m not saying that Jon doesn’t have people on his show that challenge him, where they’re obviously on opposite sides of certain issues. But it’s always pretty obvious that it’s Jon’s show. And, I’ll grant you, I love seeing Jon win. But I probably get more out of Bill because Bill will often lose. Sometimes even on the the things I agree with him on. Because (gasp!) sometimes I’m wrong. Or I at least haven’t looked at things from every angle.

That kick to the proverbial junk is good for me. Because if I go through life thinking I’m right all the time, well, eventually I get to just stop thinking at all.

I forget that, sometimes, I’m the smelly thing in the room.

The blog that knocked me offline started to smell, to me, when they went from Rallying For certain things to Rallying Against almost everything. And that’s a slippery slope I think any site or news program or religious viewpoint or political group always stands on. Anger is very motivating. Peace isn’t very sexy. Peaceful Protest starts to sound more interesting. Protest by itself… that’ll sell papers. That’ll get hits on your page.

Now, I can’t say that this is the sole motivating factor of the site. To gather people in anger just so that they can keep getting clicks. I also, for the life of me, can’t say that they don’t deserve to be pissed off. Because there’s an ugliness out there that’s getting louder and more vile and violent that exists strictly to tear down anyone that they deem as Social Justice. Although they also seem to go after videos of pets, teenagers who suffer from social awkwardness, people who review video games, people who make any kind of art at all…

Haters gonna hate. But the Haters have gotten really good at it. Death threats, Doxxing, SWATting, and so on. When all you start out trying to do is make things more fair for everyone and you’re smacked in the face over and over by people who want to “keep you in your place,” it makes sense that you’d get pissed.

But does it help? Do things get better?

What happens if you win strictly because you got angrier than the persons you were fighting? What if you screamed your message so loudly that there was no way the world could ignore it. You win! Your ideals are large and in charge! Everything better now! Right?

Honestly? Probably not. Because along that way, there were probably moments where someone who was standing with you looked over and thought, “Oh shit. I.. I don’t agree with that thing you just said. Do I… do I say something?” If they do, you turn on them (or your commenters do more likely) and the in-fighting starts and you either beat them into submission or you send them out the door.

But if they don’t say anything, and they just hang on and hope that the original goal, the reason they were standing with you in the first place, that it gets accomplished. In the end, do they still feel like they made things better? You built something, sure. You have your new Utopia as it were.

But something… smells.

ferrets - levi