The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

Reminds me of this passage from The Brothers Karamazov:

> “I heard exactly the same thing, a long time ago to be sure, from a doctor,” the elder remarked. “He was then an old man, and unquestionably intelligent. He spoke just as frankly as you, humorously, but with a sorrowful humor. ‘I love mankind,’ he said, ‘but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons. In my dreams,‘ he said, ‘I often went so far as to think passionately of serving mankind, and, it may be, would really have gone to the cross for people if it were somehow suddenly necessary, and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone even for two days, this I know from experience. As soon as someone is there, close to me, his personality oppresses my self-esteem and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I can begin to hate even the best of men: one because he takes too long eating his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps blowing his nose. I become the enemy of people the moment they touch me,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, it has always happened that the more I hate people individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity as a whole.’”

The speaker goes on to say:

> Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one’s life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.

That's not to say that people don't go around actually saying awful bigoted things. They do. They have forever. It's up to each of us to sort through them, to listen to them with courage, to protect and care for ourselves in spite of them. And if we truly care about stopping this pain, it's up to each of us to learn how to avoid reacting to external hate with our own flagrant shit.

People of color and poor people have been listening to bigoted lies and hatred for a long time now.

If you want to learn how to care for yourself in the face of internalized hatred, there are so many leaders who have led the way. Martin Luther King helped me. I've also found a lot of understanding from Krista Tippett's podcast "On Being."

'White people' are now compelled to hear a kind of racialized hatred that many have been largely insulated from until now. Maybe it's the internet? Maybe it's the politics? Either way, hate is out here in force right now and it spares no one, not even white people.

They already did and their kids are building the world's largest and most powerful surveillance and propaganda systems at Facebook and Google. Unfortunately the "G" in FAANG does not stand for "Greenpeace".