What you can learn from a former troll

Well, I am trying not to be an asshole anymore. Something that is learned about 18 years after you are 5. You don't need to take a piece out of someone just to take a piece out of someone. Something I have learned over the past year is, wow, I am/was a dick. Through facebook, real life, twitter, other social media platforms. I probably deserved to get the stuffing punched out of me. The biggest thing that made me stop. Is the people who tend to take a bite out of people just for fun, just happen to be the kind of people I do not like to be around. So, Why be that person for other people. Weed helps, holy shit can you let go of shit when you are high. Weed for everyone.

Being a troll is a lonely life. Constantly searching trigger happy topics that include immigration, race, money, class. It is a lonely life. If I could get under your skin enough to swear at me. That was a win in my book?

Win?

I am a loser, and am very lucky to have the friends I do have. Sometimes I wanted to be left alone. Sometimes I thought I deserved to be alone.

It was not until a very articulate conversation about gay marriage that I realized I was putting someone else's ethics into question. The smartest person I know. One thing you learn about people you respect, you do not want to see them either; angry, or disappointed. That day, this person was both. I believe I was 16. It was not until I stopped blaming others for my problems that I thought that conversation was the most important conversation I may have in my life.

Growing up with a white conservative stepdad had molded me from a young age, I thought he is someone who showed love where my father hadn't. So, I took the same ethical stances as he did (this stopped around 15, at the time of the conversation). He very much hated the idea of gay marriage, liberal ideologies and immigration. He was a born and bread white conservative. He hated he lived in a house that voted entirely opposite of him. He turned immature and ultimately abandoned everyone who had loved him. Sounds familiar?

I would soon have the second most important conversation of my life. The day he left. I told him you are not a man, you are weak, and lacked any sort of moral fiber. He was turning my life upside down (as I knew it). I became even stronger in my convictions when it came to everything that was about the "conservative ideologies." I had begun to take political science courses so I could learn the other side.

I had begun to curb my trolling by deactivating facebook for 2 weeks. Social media is easy to get lost in. It's easy to be a presence, and it is even easier to be the proverbial wrestling heel. It is easy to make people hate you, it is hard to make them like you.

Be kind to yourselves,

Devon