Imagine?
It's a world of anonymity; one of the few places humans can be themselves and interact without fear of harming their "real" social status and feelings by keeping others at arms distance. Even at that distance, people finally having a place to say how much they're hurting, embarrassed, scared, vulnerable, angry, exhausted, etc. Is amazing.
I've lived in the darkest parts of humanity and in that darkness, my eyes adjusted. Do you know what I saw? Pain. In every single other person, and "worse" the person behaved the more pain they had. When someone was screaming in rage and hurting others, what they were actually doing was screaming in pain and drowning.
People who have gone so long without being loved, or even seen... who have been forced to be so strong on their own while the world looks at them like they are the problem for stumbling... the weight gets so heavy, they simply can't carry it anymore. They think bad thoughts, they lash out to a world that hated them while they suffered... and at the very center of it all... all they have ever wanted was for someone to stay with them so they wouldn't be alone.
You see this in every pain on reddit. In my experience, we all have three universal pains simply being human.
Loneliness - from birth, nobody knows what is like to be us. When we first hear our mom's voice, when we skid our knee outside, even to share a laugh with a friend; they can get a good idea, but no one will ever know what it's like to do anything as us in those moments. We know this but we ignore it because it hurts too much.
Cessation - death. Even if you have complete faith in life after death, you know that you cannot know for sure. Your brain doesn't do it harbors an intense fear of just... ending.
I can't say this one because from what I've seen when most people are made aware of this without preparation, they break.
I see these three pains in every single person.
People tend to think that world peace requires us to find global happiness. That's not what I think. Happiness comes later.
Pain will unite us all. When you learn to see it, the people who hurt you are no longer enemies, but comrades. The people you've hurt are now tragedies in a war you never wanted. And you are a wounded soldier in a world without medics.
The world is on it's knees, bleeding out because we're taught to maintain the status quo; the facade of success and continueances. When you learn to see past the mask, you don't see anger, evil, murderers, delinquents, thugs, etc. You see crying humans. Even psychopaths have feelings, they just can't empathize.
I'll say this until I die: criminality is a symptom of a failing society. When we protect ourselves out of instinct instead of looking at what's really happening with others, we make more monsters. Many of us need to tend to our own wounds but for those that can stand, it's up to us to be the first medics. I choose to face pain with compassion.
In my years of doing this, I've never seen it go wrong. I'm sure it can, but every enraged person, everyone who hates me... once I choose to be on their side genuinely, their mask drops like they've been dying to let it go. Friends are made, tears fall, and healing finally happens.
So where you encounter "badness" regardless to whom it's directed, see them as in so much pain, they are bleeding it. If you can step toward them instead of away, you can heal the world, one moment at a time.
What better way to practice than by being anonymous on reddit?