bloatware

Hello, readers.

Of late, I’ve thought about my mom, and how, very often, she took politics so very personally.

She often responded to my sister or I disagreeing with her on one or another political issue as a threat to, sometimes even an erasure of, her identity.

Almost as if our not agreeing with one aspect of her reality, meant we might not agree with the entirety of her reality.

And if we didn’t believe in her reality, then how could we see her? And if we couldn’t see her, how could we love her?

She fought so hard to get us to agree with her.

She fought so hard to get us to see her point of view.

She is not alone in this.

Everybody wants to be heard.

Everybody wants to seen.

Everybody wants to believe their reality is real.

Generally speaking, when people argue they tend to search more for different ways to make the other person see their point of view and less for different ways they might see the other person’s point of view.

And possibly this feeling has increased, over time, along with technology’s long march towards the seemingly celebratory ideal of granting each individual the power to broadcast, and curate, their own reality.

I don’t know.

It certainly seems like, for most of history, and without much trouble, one segment or another of humanity has always excelled at not seeing the reality of one segment or another of humanity.

It’s like the way phones come with certain apps pre-installed.

Evolutionary bloatware, perhaps.

Gather ye bloatware in a folder while ye can, readers, and draggeth it yonder to the furthest pages of your home screen.

Good luck.

 

ttfn.