Thinking Out LoudSome guy’s trolling comment on something I recently posted on Instagram made me so mad I mocked him in response. About eight minutes later, I came to my senses and deleted my comment.
I forgot the cardinal rule Alan Jacobs outlines in How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds – that when someone is wrong on the internet, and I’m primed to go on the attack, “give it five minutes”.
Meaning: wait for the fog of rage to clear. Refrain from publicly posting anything I wouldn’t say to someone’s face directly. Best of all: decide whether anything is worth saying at all.
Maybe this is obvious to everyone, but it is so easy to forget. Not only because I only post online occasionally, so am relatively unpracticed at this. But also because social media is optimised for speed, brevity, convenience, and connectivity, making self-reflection, and the deeper habits of wisdom and restraint I want to be cultivating, far harder.
Online me is likely to be found in the shallows, floundering about with my pride and – lamely – my need to be liked. It’s amazing, really, that I haven’t put my foot in my online mouth more often. There’s so much material to work with.
The solution isn’t to quit social media entirely; my wounded ego is always online, even when offline. The more difficult thing is to grow a character that doesn’t need to lash back.
A line from the biblical book of James written millennia ago seems more relevant today, not less: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”
Life online is quicker than quick. Even more reason, then, for any response to be slow, and slow.
This Thinking Out Loud was first published on Facebook.