Raising Cain

Earlier this week, I woke up with nothing immediate on my plate to do, so I did some morning gaming before work. This was around 6am local and my first game unforunately had a "thrower". This is someone who actively works against winning in a team oriented game. I had another teammate who was livid against this individual saying things like - "I'm going to fucking kill you man, where do you live?"

It was just another day in online gaming, but this time the thrower responded with "Houston, TX", to which the screaming individual responded, "I live in Dallas, I'm fucking coming to kill you". They continued yelling back n forth getting more and more detailed with the time and place these two individuals would meet. It got so loud and obnoxious so early for me, that I muted chat and went along with the game. Ignoring the fact that two individuals might be meeting up to kill one another.

I feel I've become accustomed to just pure toxicity and anger. It wasn't even a day later and I saw a house cat jolt across the road, freeze in panic to turn around and get run over by a car. It was a gruesome sight and the white 4 door car just kept driving. Now, this could have been a genuine accident unavoidable, but this car had already commited a F in the grading scale of driving minutes earlier. This was the same car that accelerated in front of me, then swerved into my lane and hit the brakes hard solely to wait in line for this left hand turn.

So that asshole was not only a bad driver, but a cat killer.

Was the world always this toxic before I started paying attention? Am I part of the toxicity? Does anyone complain about my actions when I'm not aware?

Though, this post is labeled "Raising Cain" for the biblical times reference of raising/striking with pure anger. Too much of the world is too angry these days and I can't be the only one.

Even when I'm trying to do something good, like letting a car into my lane during stand still merges - the car behind me blares the horn. It is common courtesy, but to someone else I've just delayed them a few seconds which is of course deserving of a horn. It upsets me, it angers me and the cycle never ends.

The online world is full of toxicity and anger, and the offline world seems to be catching up with that.