Rise Above

I received the most incredible one star review of my novel the other day. It dropped onto my virtual doorstep early in the morning and lay there like a steamy bag of poo until I finally gathered the courage to examine it more closely.

                Whew! Such a reek of animosity, such a stream of vitriol. So unnecessary.

                And it occurred to me . . .  at this moment, somebody, somewhere, is doing CPR on a stranger, and they are pushing every ounce of their will power, their entire essence, into making that chest gasp and heave on its own.

                There is a worthy endeavor.

                Someone is building a homeless shelter, someone is holding a child’s hand, someone is rescuing a raccoon from a foothold trap; and these are all good things.

                But.

It also occurred to me that the collective weight of negativity on our planet may well be our undoing, and if that is the case, then we’ll deserve whatever we have coming to us.

                Rise above, people, rise above.

                It’s not a good thing to hate, even in the virtual world, okay? That sort of thing eats away not only at your own soul, but the souls of everyone you touch.

                If you are actually sitting at your computer somewhere spewing endless streams of hatred, you’ve got to stop. Because we’re all connected, right? Your hand in mine, like it or not, is the only way we’ll get through this life intact, and right now you’re weighing the rest of us down. Pick up your chin, look around you, and understand . . . it’s coming down to brass tacks, isn’t it? We live in a world where the unborn die by the thousands, the refugees cry at the gates, and gun sales are through the roof.

Some would say the sky is falling down around us.

                Please, please understand. The world needs you. And it is not okay to waste your time huddled over your laptop spewing nastiness at all and sundry. You’ve got to jump into the fray, you’ve got to make your life count for something. What you think of an anonymous writer’s novel – or of Caitlyn Jenner’s boobs, or the Starbuck’s coffee cup - is moot, and these are unpardonably silly topics to have frittered your time away on.

Rescue yourself.