it's the only thing that there's just too little of...

I've been thinking a lot about anger this week.

Well, to be honest, I've been angry quite a lot this week.  I was angry as a teenager, but I think I've actually grown up to be quite even-tempered.  It might sometimes appear to be otherwise, but I loathe conflict and will go well out of my way to avoid it.

But this week has nearly broken me.  I'm angry and ashamed at the state of my own country.  It's bad enough that a majority of people voted in the referendum to leave the EU, but what's happened since then has been just awful. Most depressing has been the rise of racism and the plummeting descent of national debate into the gutter.  This hasn't come completely out of the blue, and we had a taste of this in the last General Election, but watching people hurling abuse and hatred and suspicion at refugees and also at the people who dare to show them an ounce of compassion has been depressing in the extreme.  52% of voters in the referendum voted to leave the EU, but that doesn't make the other 48% traitors or remove their right to speak up.

Ugh. I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it.

But, you know what?  This is no good.

John Lydon famously said that "Anger is an energy", and maybe it is, but it's not a positive energy.  One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received is to try to worry about the things that you can control.  I find this incredibly helpful when thinking about my health in particular, but maybe that's something I might be wise to try and apply here too.  I can't change the result of the referendum.  I tried debating with people who were thinking of voting leave, and essentially nothing that I said was ever going to change their minds.  I was wasting my time. I'm not sure that anything I say now is likely to change anything either.  It might upset and annoy me that people feel this way, and I find it very hard to understand, but getting angry about it doesn't help anyone... and it definitely doesn't help me, because it just makes me feel impotent.

Buddha apparently said "holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die".

I think maybe he's right.

Why don't we try just being kind to people? I'm not asking you to be reasonable in the face of someone idiot racist calling you a traitorous bremoaner, but you can just be a little nicer to the people around you... whether that be at home, at work, on the bus or wherever.  I'm going to give it a try.  It can't hurt, can it?  I want to try and do something positive, because I'm sick and tired of all the anger and all the negativity. I can be in control of that.

...although, it's so hard because they are *such* arseholes.

he said, she said....

A friend of mine commented on Facebook last night that she had just shattered the screen of her iPhone.  It's not the most earth-shattering update, but the social media revolution is all about the mundanities of life, so it seemed about par for the course.  Then the comments started:

"That's what happens when you get a shitty iPhone hahahah"
"Over rated anyway. You are better off with a Sony Xperia Z. With a cutting-edge camera, a super-slim design and the ability to withstand life's knocks and bumps"

etc. etc.

Harmless enough banter, I suppose, but I'm heartily sick of all of this lazy Apple bashing.  As if iPhones are the only phones that sometimes break if you drop them.

Look.  I buy Apple stuff, but I freely admit that the people who go on and on about this company being the most amazing thing ever are extremely boring.  Yes, they do get an awful lot of fawning coverage in the press.  Yes, I'm sick of the sight of idiots in their sleeping bags queuing up for a chance to get a gold phone before anyone else.  Yes, I'm tired of the drip-drip-drip of speculation about the next model.  Frankly, who isn't?

But you know what?  The people who go out of their way to slag Apple products off are even worse.  If you think that Android is a better operating system and you're convinced that you get better value out of your Samsung phone, then I'm happy for you.  Why isn't that enough for you?  Why do you feel the need to desperately sneer at everyone else?  Yes, £700-odd is a lot to pay for a phone, but it's worth what people are prepared to pay, isn't it?  I wouldn't queue up all night to get one, and I'm actually thinking of keeping my iPhone 4 for another year, but each to their own.  Different strokes and all that.

Have Apple jumped the shark?  Have they lost their edge since Steve Jobs died?  I don't know and I don't really care, but knee-jerk opinions from blow-hards on the internet are not very likely to change my mind either way.  I don't want hagiography, but neither do I want trolling... and the pointless my-dad-is-better-than-your-dad arguments are just pathetic and childish.

As it happens, I have an iPhone an (old) iPad and a Macbook Pro and I'm very happy with all of them.  They work for me.  Funnily enough, I actually spend a fair bit of time in my professional life railing against people automatically choosing Apple products for work when they are more expensive to buy, more difficult to support and not resilient enough for a retail environment.  I know they are cool-looking, but sometimes that isn't nearly enough.  You see how it's possible to have a nuanced position on these things?

A nuanced opinion on the internet?  Imagine that.

Why can't we all just get along?