What comes after despair? Hope, if you’re lucky. It is dark before the dawn but the dawn always returns. At least on this planet. If you’re not lucky, what comes after despair is brutality. “Whatever has been done to me, that is what I may do to others; and whatever others have done, that is what may be done to them.” That’s how people live on the internet these days. It’s the golden rule’s dark twin. If I were feeling fancy, I’d call it “the rule of salt,” because it crumbles at a touch and lacerates the hands every time it is used.
