the zoom meeting facilitator asked us to state a few things as we introduced ourselves: our name, our race and gender identification, what we would want our superpower to be, were we to have one.

the first woman who stated her name et al said, “i would want my superpower to be able to read people’s minds.”

i shuddered. why on earth, in the social-media-middle of seeing every single thing people are thinking and doing and opining and touting and boasting and ego-stroking and proselytizing and whining about, every place they have gone, are going, will go, every squat-thrust, deep-knee-bend, downward dog they have ever managed, every hair on the bodies of their sweet furry pets, every ingredient in every recipe for every meal, every factoid about every little atom of their lives, would you want to read people’s minds?

the others laughed and added their thoughts about this woman’s desire, but when it was my turn to respond to her superpower-wish, i said, “as an empath, i would like to NOT be able to read people’s minds.” good grief. enough already.

it has been my experience that hiding, snoozing and unfollowing are the only ways to survive some of the ugliness in social media. now, i don’t readily hide, snooze or unfollow. after all, i do want to see other thoughts on issues, different perspectives about topics where i disagree or which i haven’t given much time. but when things get ugly, and people are over-the-top, a “hide” or “unfollow” or “snooze” are good ways to save yourself a few moments of W-T-F!-exhaustion. i try to remember that these “friends” are often people i haven’t seen in many decades and will likely never see again in ‘real life’. nevertheless, i still linger in astounded feelings of betrayal.

so when i passed this post canoeing down the FB river, i laughed at the use of the term “power-user”. perhaps this person would have listed their superpower as “button-clicker”. for with that mere button-click there is self-preservation. with that mere button-click there is silence. with that mere button-click there is unity. eliminate all those who annoy you or disagree with you and you have utopia. or do you?

it would seem a pretty bland world that way. the woven threads of the country would flatten out, the tapestry no longer ripe with diverse ideas, no longer a myriad of textures, no longer heterogeneous. soporific uniformity would cover the land. and the fire beneath the melting pot would cease to burn.

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY