Don’t feed your inner troll.

We all have one, even me! Ready to pounce at a moment’s notice on any internet ignoramus. “How on earth can you think that?” “You clearly haven’t read the thousands of books that I have that prove incontrovertibly that you are wrong.” “Can’t you see that I have just proved how intellectually superior I am?”
“How dare you…[insert here your favourite flavour of righteous indignation]?”

Especially that last one is hard to resist. It’s what social media is designed to trigger. I call Facebook and Twitter indignation engines and it is why I spend much less time on them these days.

But indignation is a bit like people who are vehemently homophobic of whom I always think ” Have you never stopped to wonder why it bothers you so much what other people do in their beds?” Similarly why does it bother you so much that someone sees the world differently from you? Are your views so fragile? Is your inner troll a sensitive little soul who is easily hurt?

Don’t be fooled. Your inner troll is out to make you and everyone else miserable. If you don’t feed him he will eventually die. And then we can all live happily ever after.