How Did We Get Here?

The psychological stress caused by cognitive dissonance is something that has caught my attention. How could it not? You don’t have to go far to find people getting upset over things that likely would never have bothered them in the past. The Internet is filled with videos of people melting down over someone else not wearing a mask (even when there is far more than six feet of distance between this person and anyone else); of others wrapped in plastic from head to toe, warily looking over their shoulders to make sure no one gets too close. Nerves are frazzled, patience is thin, too many people seem physically unable to relax. Yet these same folks never seem to pause and think, to reflect and ask questions, to look beyond the news that constantly gets spoon fed to them by well-funded media outlets. Why? Why won’t they challenge the narrative? Why are they seemingly unable to look a differing point of view in the face and honestly try to find out why someone else might believe it? Doesn’t it boggle your mind and bother you that something as fundamental to learning and living as asking your own questions and searching for their answers has become political to the extent that friendships, jobs, and peace of mind are on the line if you even dare to do so?