Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher or Variations on a Theme

Hi. My name is Dee and I am a Stumbleupon addict.  Lately it seems all of my posts have been inspired by sites I've found on Stumbleupon, lackadaisically web surfing (instead of putting out resumes or practicing for interviews).  Because we didn't know that the world is full of wild, wonderful, disgusting, atrocious things, we needed Stumbleupon to expose us to all the world has to offer, and give us a like or dislike button and (God have mercy) forums to interject our opinions, because the world desperately needs to know how we feel about double rainbows. (If you missed this internet phenom, you didn't miss much.) But sometimes it seems like Stumbleupon is almost like an oracular...oracle? It shows both how venomous, malicious and sometimes, startlingly awesome the world and its people are.  Case in point- I love  the websites Notalwaysright.com 
and Givesmehope.com- one of which has thousands of examples of what jackwagons people can be, especialy if you're on the wrong side of the customer service desk, while the other is examples (not many as on notalwaysright, I'm sure) of surprising, tear inducing examples of human decency.  Try an experiment- load both pages on your pc at once, and see which one you gravitate towards.  Ten'll get you fifty, it'l be the one that provides all the evidence you'll ever need that human kind's trip to hell in a handbasket will be mighty crowded.  Not only is it full of examples of flat out stupidity, but cupidity (e.g. excessive greed) - grandmother's steal from stores, people curse telemarketers (ok, so on a scale of 1-10, not a sin that will send you to the ninth level of hell, but, having been a telemarketer, I can say with sincerity- most of these people are just trying to do their jobs.... and I'm glad none of you know where I live so you can "return the favor.")  These people mock their children, throw things at cashiers, and in every way possible try to gyp the system- these are the common man. Or so you might believe if that were all you ever read.  Reading websites online has the propensity of making one cynical, because everyone can put their opinions, unedited, oh God, how they're unedited  (and no, I didn't forget my own case in point, I know), their prejudices, their ignorance online. Is this how we all really are inside?
But I didn't forget the flank of my argument.  On givesmehope.com, we find the other side of the internet- the community, the freedom to share anonymously the daily selfless, random acts of kindness and civility that allow us to continue to live on top of one another like rats in a cage.  Examples of grace under fire, of teenagers standing up to hate, of true love (however nauseating the details) overcoming time, and  other obstacles.  There are so many stories out there of people everyday doing the right thing.  Wouldn't it be nice if that were the majority of what you read on -line, instead of random drunken texts from textsfromlastnight or "humorous" cartoons on hipster hitler?  People should be more careful of what reflection they cast in the mirror, on t.v. and on-line.  The monsters we read about, are thrilled and terrified by are real.  But then again, so are the angels.  They are us. I can only continue to read, watch and stumble, horrified and fascinated by it all, and hope that in the end the angels prevail. Until then, I think I'll skip textsfromlastnight or hipster hitler for a few days, and maybe, just read givesmehope.com.  I think we all could do with a little more lohope, don't you?




I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.  ~Joseph Baretti, quoted by James Boswell, 1766, commonly misattributed to Samuel Johnson* 


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 * Don't hate- liberate!!