2020-03-10 ------------------------------------------------------------------ I feel like moving through the mainstream is sort of like keeping yourself in a constant state of expectancy for fight or flight. It's like I am always ready to be riled up by something. And the riling up of masses has somehow become this huge political instrument that looks like it's going to get out of hand due to its scale. It seems to me that in order to exist in any "public" form out there takes an inordinate amount of aligning yourself in preparation for the flame wars directed at you. I am not very thick skinned. I will rather give up and pack my things and leave than stay in an inflammated existance with people who need me to oppose them to justify their point of view. I am mostly interested in learning. For a person like me to exist publicly in mainstream, I would have to adopt a very slimmed down version of what goes on in my mind. It would be rounded out, built on a mountainside behind a mote with five year supply of arguments. But this is an existance to be pitied. There is no learning from such a position. ------------------------------------------------------------------