Ever noticed how some people lose their shit when they read online comments about what is and what isn't...cool? or some such shit. Some random person you follow on Twitter decides to declare some random act the coolest thing since Jesus brewed chang'aa in Cana, and suddenly you life has taken a turn for the worse and you obsess over that thing for the next month, driving everyone crazy in the process. Until some other random person you follow on Instagram declares pig entrails sautéed in a 2003 Sauvignon Blanc and garnished with parsley-fused real Kenyan kachumbari to be the Meal of the Year and off to the races we go.
We are not immune to this craziness; many of us, especially the active ones online, get influenced to one degree or another by what we read from those we follow or those who follow us on a variety of subjects. How we react to the online peer influence is important; it either helps us understand our world better, or it crushes our spirit and deadens our soul.
There are many in my online community who make authoritative declarations on a range of subjects. I respect some of them well enough to not dismiss their ideas out of hand. But many are the equivalent of the village mad man; they may have the grammar or the chutzpah to say some things, but I seriously question their motives or their intellect, especially when some of them purport to declare with finality that they have the answers to some of the most intractable problems faced by humans: what do men or women want? How do I raise my children? Who was better: Tupac or Biggie?
Do you want to be the one to take advise about the person you care about most from a person you have interacted with only online, who sometimes declares things to be what you know to not be, and who's sanity is in doubt given the vehemence with which they hold onto certain shibboleths close to their hearts? I think not. Life is not, I think, meant to be lived in fear that what someone says may contradict what you know, deny the value of your experience or shatter an illusion that makes your life bearable.
I am not you; you are certainly not me. If I want to listen to Bob Dylan while reading Proust and downing substantial volumes of Kenya Cane, I don't think that your opinion on the subject is valuable or necessary. If you want to call people you disagree with mean names, that is no skin off my nose. You are you; I am me. I will make my choices and whether they make me happy or not, they are not intended to make you happy or seek your approval. You're free to laugh when it all goes tits up so long as I get to do the same when it goes tits up for you. If not, you can block me and I shall return the favour.
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