A friend recently wrote an interesting piece, the first in a multipart series, about the state of America today. The gist of his very first installment is that we are currently living in an era of hysteria.

I couldn’t agree more.

Hysteria has become a norm, a default state of mind for so many, many people. It’s as if some folks don’t feel alive if there isn’t a reason to get hysterical about something or someone. The media obviously plays a huge part in this drama. They literally feed off every sensational, click-baiting headline they can muster. More hysteria means more ad revenue. I might need to stop feeding the media and find a hysteria-free zone somewhere.

But you don’t have to have a mail-order degree in psychology to deduce that it’s the vial divisiveness on the most popular social media platforms that are fueling the hysteria fire. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. How practically everyone has strong opinions about just about everything these days. Especially the really dumb people that feel compelled to argue vocally about all kinds of stuff.

Like the folks that have previously allowed themselves to get vaccinated nine times without a complaint, but now feel increasingly threatened by even the thought of preventative covid-19 shots. They don’t care about the greater good, if the ICUs are maxed out or if their stupidity means the virus gets a chance to mutate again and again and again. They just don’t give a shite. Instead, these dumb-asses take great comfort in being part of militant antivax groups where nonsense makes sense.

Hysteria.

Also a decent song by Def Leopard, a band I listened to for a short while back in the early 1980s.

The image above is called Pacific Blü Resurfaced 1983.