He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding:
but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.
Proverbs 14:29

Lately, world events have the wrath level cranked up to new levels: some indignant over events, others indignant over reponses to the events, and even more seemingly indignant over issues peripheral to events, as if they were linked in some inextricable fashion. Perhaps everything is linked, Perhaps in our world of social interaction, there is always a Newtonian reaction for every action. Unfortunately, human relations are not nearly so consistent as physics.

It is easy to get riled up. It is easy to fly off the handle. It is easy to write things in haste that in just a few days will seem even more foolish than they are impetuous. One must be vigilant to avoid those pitfalls, which is most easily done by recognizing our own human fallibility, and proclivity for folly.

There are legions of superlative opinions, each one countered by even more superlative rebuttals: the perfect opinion colliding with the more perfect rebuttal. The unstoppable confronting the irresistible; the energy expended by these, could it be harnessed, would generate enough steam that there would be no need for fossil fuels, no fracking, no offshore drilling, no wind farms…just the power of folly.

Most of these superlative opinion/rebuttals seem offered in haste, either haste of reaction, or haste to produce a reaction. The latter is probably more prevalent than the former, since no one will click on a website link that only offers the reasonable…just the outrageous. Outrageous produces reaction, response, and revenue, thus the old news-reporting standard, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

If it whimpers….well, there’s no glory in that, though some seem to vie for media attention with their whimpers. They know who they are.

Most folks never had it so good, nor had so much while needing so little. Even the complainers have cups that run over without ever seeming to be cognizant of it. Many seem to demand a double portion of “run-over” when the existing run-over cannot be utilized. We want more so we can waste more, and then demand even more.

We want our opinions to be the superlative ones, so we rush to hush all the others, as if ours would be more reasonable if the others were merely covered so they could not be heard. We seem to want our way, and not only that, want others to willfully agree that our way is the best way, imposing an Orwellian thought-crime on those who do not fully accept the betterness of our way. We are childlike in our ruthlessness, which is the bad part of child-like. We want total rehabilitation of dissenters.

Wrath? I am practicing slow to wrath with a lot more to go to I before I become effective at it. I am, however, learning about the folly of hasty reply. I seem to have that under control for the moment, though if one is not vigilant, folly can get out of hand, and in our haste we think we are doing something useful, which is the biggest part of the folly…the part of human thinking that tells us to remind ourselves that everything we think and say is useful, when in truth it does not even make us feel better, much less anyone else.

Folly is so easy. Slow to wrath is so hard. The faster to wrath, the greater the folly.

The greatest folly of all is the inability to detect our own folly. It has been the ruination of many, as some political candidates may soon discover.

No one is immune to folly, particularly those who think it only occurs in others.

©2015 Mississippi Chris Sharp