Noah, Thank you for sharing your rant with Age of Empathy. I'm so sorry that you and I live in this time of civic unrest in the US when we do wonder about our safety, basically going anywhere that's crowded. It's a weird state of being. I was born in 1978 and remember before it was like this. The US has done a lot of shit to make us be hated, too. There's so much depth and complexity to this conversation. It's definitely hard times. Even those libertarian conservative gun toting people were just innocent babies once. Why do they have all this anger? There are parts of me that want to help them out of the despair they must be in to be feeling this way--to feel so utterly helpless. What a mess!

Talking with you and a few other people inspired me to write a poem this week about the US. I basically feel really sad about it right now. I also hope that we see progress and deliberate equitable change - in healthcare, income, across races, etc., over the next few decades and then into the longterm future. I have to hold on to hope or I sink to far into despair.