Social networks on the Internet give a perfect possibility to see
all kinds of human behavior simultaneously at one glance without the need for
immediate interaction. You always have the time to read a comment, reflect on
it, and give an answer – or not – appropriate to the discussion. You don’t have
to answer right away, and exactly this gives you the opportunity to learn and
to grow as a person.
I think that when meeting people in person, we usually get overwhelmed just
by someone’s appearance or facial expressions, which sometimes suffice to
provoke an inappropriate reaction. I don’t want to say: Exchange your life for
an online reality, I just say here is a great opportunity to learn how to
distinguish a person’s motivation while engaging in carefree conversation.
Since the motivation is key in every dialogue, you should definitely figure
out the agenda behind the argument. It is, in fact, much more important than
the discussion itself.
Be it in a physical reality or on the Internet, there are always people who
like to suck up all the energy in a conversation; their idea is not to bring in
any plausible arguments, but to destroy everything which smells like harmony.
Because in a real argument, you get to laugh every once in a while, and on
occasions, we also admit to our own conflict of ideas – don’t we?
Trolling
for fun and recreation
Well not everyone, there are many
people who don’t really care about the subject of the conversation; they care
about the object – which is you. They always attack you personally, telling you
that you are stupid, uneducated, unqualified, inexperienced, naive or easily
deceivable, unscientific, immature, superstitious.
As you can see the words are always
personal, they never contain any real argumentation, and if they do, they are
combined with words which have a negative connotation towards you or the
subject you are ‘talking’ about.
Losing
all of your energy
The problem with all sane people is
that they completely overlook the initial motivation; they start justifying
their stance, and even try to explain their argumentation in a million
different ways in the hope to gain some sort of understanding of someone whose
only ‘understanding’ is to empty your well of energy to the point of complete
exhaustion. I’ve seen those people having entirely opposed opinions while
arguing with different people. So what does this tell you?
Of course I believe that we grow and
change throughout our lives, and that we learn to understand new perspectives –
but not inside 20 minutes while having an angry conversation.
You might say; it’s subconsciously
intentional. They are mostly not really aware of what they are doing, to say it
mildly: they just are extremely opportunistic. They go after it, and try to
make the best mess out of it they possibly can. And the higher the tensions the
better. They always look satisfied when things get out of control.
I’ve seen them putting this
sarcastic little smile on their face when they feel they got to the point where
the argument is brought down to a senseless war of personal accusations. The
funny thing is – or not – that they seem quite satisfied after such a ‘debate’
– but you are not.
Close
the treasury and observe
I wouldn’t be able to write about
this if I hadn’t experienced it myself many times, falling into this trap
persistently. But at one point, I decided to consciously change my role in
these discussions. Instead of doing the same mistake all over again, I now try
to stay as an observer, because this is what I can choose to be. I finally
understand that they are not after me, but after my energy, and that “I” as a
person am completely irrelevant to them.
In fact, you can test this for
yourself. The next time when you sense that there might be such a conversation
‘coming up’. Try not to take any leading role, nor to explain any of your
opinions. Just state them and let them speak for themselves. If somebody
attacks you, let them, as if it had nothing to do with ‘yourself’ – because it
doesn’t. What you will see is that they drop off quickly due to the lack of
resistance.
Usually, they try to provoke with
one or two more personal remarks directed against you, and if that doesn’t
work, they choose another victim, or they abandon the whole situation all
together.
However, the most important thing
is: they leave in their own anger and frustration, with no energy harvested –
and this is how it should be. You do much more for these people by doing
nothing – than to prolong their suffering and inability to face their
dysfunction by letting them feed on your energy.
The
typical troll
Most easily they are recognized on
the Internet; usually writing hateful, disconnected comments below personal
posts of people who have certain interests in, be it alternative medicine,
healthy living, spirituality, or any other kind of progressive areas which
largely deviate from standard viewpoints.
They especially like to attack these
topics, because they give them a perfect ground for ridicule and sarcasm
(although some trolls are paid by various industries to promote their agendas
intentionally – but this is another story).
A post on social media is a personal
thing, because you share something you like or don’t like with your ‘friends’
or ‘circles’. So if your post reflects just that, I can choose to like it or
not by sharing or disregarding it. But why should I write hateful and
disrespectful comments below something that you like? It makes no sense.
Perhaps there are inappropriate posts sometimes, but they don’t get commented
by those people.
Internet trolling to me is nothing
else but being a jerk on the local market square. It is the same personality,
the same profile – watch out for them.
They
test you
Different sources show that around
5% of a population fall under the category sociopath/psychopath – never
underestimate the impact of those people, especially not when they occupy
leading positions in our society. I look at them as some sort of human
indicators for people who want to test the sincerity of their own personal
growth.
As long as they freak you out, you
know that you still got to work on your perception. I think they exist to show
us all of our weaknesses which we usually don’t see when we around like-minded
people. When you stop taking their remarks personally, then you can focus on
the inside and see what it is that upsets you. Perhaps there is something
within you which needs to be recognized, something, which needs your attention.
Why
they don’t like you
They don’t hate you; they hate what
you stand for: tolerance, softness, kindness, progressiveness, open-mindedness,
and many other qualities they don’t have. On a subconscious level, they try to
get this from you, because they know that it’s right, but they don’t know how
to assimilate it. You can grow and become even kinder and stronger, or you can
fall down on their level where they will eventually beat you. Their goal is to
show you that you are not better than they are.
One thing is clear – if you want to
be able to handle these challenges you need to grow stronger. The Internet is a
great possibility for that; I’d call it a flight simulator. You can experiment
without needing to fear any serious repercussions – although you shouldn’t
overdo it! The aim should be a spontaneous recognition of what it is – a test –
an instant awareness that this is happening – again – for just one reason: to
make you grow STRONGER.
The
real haters
However, this article would be
incomplete if I didn’t mention those who really hate what you are posting on
the Internet. Especially if your posts are related to uncovering any kind of
industry or government fallacies and failures. They see it as a personal
offense when you speak out against stat-ism, military interventions, foreign
policies, economic structures, food production, and food labeling, dogmatism,
or big business’ ‘science’ research.
For them it is impossible to deal
with the fact that their government or any other structure they trust in, could
exploit them for their profits. It’s just unimaginable to them, and so they
discard it all together. An indicator is, that they never allow any of this to
be true, simply because it would open up the possibility for a complete
breakdown of their belief system.
I think they sense that, and this is
the reason why they believe absolutely everything which comes from top to
bottom – this is what they were taught to understand: information cannot travel
from bottom to top, because it would destroy their whole world view
instantaneously. To me, it feels as if they had a filter system in their minds,
which blocks everything which might attack the system as a whole.
I don’t think that these people are
psychopaths like the ones I mentioned earlier. This is why I would like to
distinguish between those two situations. The people in this case don’t
necessarily detest you personally; they just dislike the content you are
posting.
What
they don’t understand – doesn’t exist
I think their aggressiveness comes
from their inability and stubbornness to understand that ‘up there’ are not
only individuals who selflessly work for the common good of people – although
many of course are – but deceit and deception like in the worst superstitions.
Their main anchor is science and all
its derivatives; it is the holy grail of all knowledge and anyone who questions
it is a heretic and should burn in hell. Why? Because you are asking stupid,
unnecessary questions for which you have no authority to speak about.
I don’t know why they continuously
neglect the fact, that there are uncountable instances of ‘unscientific’
approaches who have let to great discoveries. Who knows what Tesla would have
to go through if he lived today?! I’ve read that he said that the induction
motor ‘appeared’ – vision like – in front of him while he was reading Goethe’s
‘Faust’. Well…I
don’t know what he was smoking that day, but ‘appeared’….hmm.
Thought
criminals vs. status quo
But this is how it goes: if I give
one example that proves that things aren’t always ‘sterile scientific’, then
they must be the opposite – or mumbo-jumbo as Richard Dawkins says it. Of course
things should be tested in our reality – since after all – the induction motor
is a real thing – but the way to get there should have no ‘thought
criminal-like’ restrictions.
Why shouldn’t people test
alternative ways of governance, of healing, of food production, of thinking and
experiencing, of socializing, of education, of co-existence – why is this so
dangerous, crazy, superstitious, new age-y? And why should it be dangerous?
It’s an age-long fight; current
systems don’t like to open up to new findings; they discredit them to keep the
status quo. Why is it that people always feel so cutting edge themselves when
they look at new technology?
All of this that we see today will
be old junk in a decade or two from now. I mean everything: your clothes, your
car with its latest equipment, your phone, and all the other stuff. It will be
outdated, and you will look at it like on some ancient technology or trend –
and you’ll probably laugh at it (if you are not a collector of antiquities).
Or look at all the belief systems
people have had throughout the centuries: political systems, economic systems,
and educational systems – it’s just a system which will eventually change and
rest in some history book as a ‘nice try’, an evolutionary step. Why is it so
hard to see that all of this that you believe in will be gone one day – I mean
all of it?
We cling to our beliefs as if they
were permanent, although history shows – even the very recent one (look at your
mobile phone from the 90's) – that things continuously change without us being
aware of it at all. I mean – why all this fear after all – because something
might change? It will – regardless.
The
fear of loss that creates the hate
As I understand it, there is an
underlying fear of not being loved by anyone. And now it seems that even your
government doesn’t love you, that your church doesn’t love you, that ….they lie
to you? Is that possible? Yes, it is. There are actual people behind these
institutions – and people make mistakes because some of them have very bad qualities
like greed and narcissism, and tons of other human frustrations just like you
do.
So the idea of any perfect structure
is illusionary because they are run by people with millions of different
individual interests. And combining different interests means compromising the
interests of other people – so it can’t be perfect by definition. Consensus is
possible in a society where no one wants anything, in particular, for oneself
but wants something which includes everyone – like nature does.
However, nature is not a concept but
a living thing which changes its appearance but never its functioning.
So to understand that we are part of
this is key to anything we do, because we cannot change our inherent natural
system, we can only change our appearance. When we understand this then
appearances lose their seriousness, and we are finally able to enjoy this play
of an ever-changing game of forms that come and go without mistaking them for
being something permanent. They are not.
Who would have thought we’ll end up
down here speaking about all this stuff – I didn’t. And this spontaneous
surprise factor is what creation is all about. It is a play which reinvents
itself continuously – just for the sake of playing.
There was one post recently which I
liked very much; there was an image of a smiling child and below it said: Be
happy like a child – for no reason.
