Quote:
Originally Posted by Buehler445
DJLN is right.
My Dad is a Lock stock and barrel Fox News guy. FIL is a Dyed in the wool CBS guy (even though he’s more conservative than I am. IDK man. He’s just him). And if politics are in their mind they’re ****ing miserable. Both of them.
Same goes for my wife who is pretty apolitical, if she reads shit on Facebook that winds her up she’s just ****ing miserable.
It doesn’t help that Facebook knows that rage gets clicks and their algorithms put that shit in your feed. Less sophisticated, but cable news does the same shit.
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It's the whole theory of the "God shaped hole".
I don't adhere to any faith so that exact iteration doesn't scan with me, but the theory does. The idea is that if you identify yourself by your faith and theoretically faith is built on love and forgiveness, then your anchor is something built on love and forgiveness and your overall countenance will be built accordingly.
So if your 'anchor' is your politics, politics is built on connivance and backbiting and on its BEST days compromise (and even compromise means choosing between things you believe it). And this isn't new - it always has been. Go all the way back to Washington's second term and the National Gazette. ****ing Jefferson installed Freneau to snipe at Washington...
while a member of Washington's cabinet.
I don't expect everyone's anchor to be their faith (though I will concede that the people I know who do tend to be very happy people as a whole), but man - it can't be something as pernicious as politics.
It's why I loved WilliamtheIrish's post so much. I don't know if he's a man of faith but whether he is or isn't is not relevant, if he has a 'god shaped hole' he's filled it with volunteer work - something inherently good. For others its exercise. Others family.
It just cannot !@#$ing be politics. It can't be sloth or envy or avarice or lust (sadly). There needs to be something there and it needs to be built on a positive framework.