Sometimes I look at Reddit first thing in the morning.

Many subreddits focus on the shenanigans of toxic people. Redditors tell stories of entitled boomers, in-laws who voice their politics too loudly and too often, and siblings who take advantage of siblings. It’s a cathartic read. Reddit audiences seem sympathetic and mostly OK with forming judgments from a one-sided story.

It’s the kind of righteous rage we need to energize our day.

But do I want to start my day in righteous rage? I mean, each day presents so many magnetic pulls toward rage. Most media business models depend on inciting my anger and keeping me angry. It’s the tried-and-true model for holding eyeballs on the screen and fingers clicking.

Starting the day with righteous rage predisposes me toward angry encounters. Starting with righteous rage has me watching and waiting for more anger-producing moments, maybe even turning the innocuous moments into sinister moments.

What if, over time, that trajectory makes me think about severing relationships with those who behave like entitled children? That’s a common Reddit discourse. Is severing relationships and excising people a good long-term strategy? One problem with the habit of righteous rage is that it systematically destroys thoughts that relationships are, well, precious.

Yes, that’s right, feeding my righteous rage makes me forget that some of the misbehaving people in my life — even those daily incidental encounters — can bring much-needed perspective to my own existence.

I recently read that musician Nick Cave (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) spends 15 minutes in silence before each performance. In that silence, he described how he invites dead friends to show up:

“I call on Arthur, for example, for his joyfulness; Jethro for his anarchic spirit; my mother for her courage; and my father for his dynamism. I also look to my old friend Mick Geyer for his diligence; Tracy Pew, Shane, and Conway for their subversiveness, disorder and wicked humour. I call upon Anita for her pure creativity and Roland for his extraordinary inventiveness, and so forth.”

I admire this approach to preparing to perform. Do the dead join him on stage? Unclear. But just before my mother died, her long-dead ancestors kept showing up to invite her on amazing train rides and car trips to small Iowa towns. She recalled interesting conversations despite being bedridden.

Remembering a specific quality of someone no longer in your life seems like a hidden treasure of being human. The no-longer-accessible person displayed this trait and, come to think of it, I really value that trait. In fact, I need that trait right now.

But my morning habit of righteous rage deadens me to looking for those admirable traits in others.

The other day, I tried an experiment. Rather than start with Reddit, I happened on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which is the exact opposite of our media business models. Rather than a story of foolish baby boomers doing foolish baby boomer things (full disclosure: I am a baby boomer and fully capable of all the same foolishness), I read Jesus tell his listeners to leave off in the middle of their worship when they remember someone who had something against them. Run and reconcile — that’s priority #1.

What would life look like if we considered our relationships as precious as, say, a two-week vacation or worship of the Almighty? How would we walk through each day if we joyfully anticipated extraordinary conversations?

“But wait,” you say. “My days are filled with inane chatter. Your point seems like nonsense. Are you a Pollyanna?” Possibly. Even so, consider the deathbed conversations and the people those conversations conjure. Our ordinary talk comprises some of the most critical and human moments of our lives.

If only we could stop to recognize them.

Daniel Kahneman invited readers of “Thinking Fast and Slow” to step over the first, knee-jerk reaction we have to a provocation. That quick response may block proper thinking. Instead, first pause to consider.

So, when in line at the grocery store and the (fellow) baby boomer spouts off per Reddit, a pause may allow me to wonder at the precursor to that angry jibe. What would cause someone to say something so inane?

Is there something really big happening in every conversation we have?

Probably not.

But maybe.

Only time till tell.

Kirk Livingston is a copywriter in Minneapolis and author of “ListenTalk: Is Conversation an Act of God?“

The post Why do we choose to start our days with online toxicity and righteous rage? appeared first on MinnPost.

This post was shared from MinnPost.