Why is everyone so angry?

[mrnoodle]

Lately, I've been noticing that people seem to be on short fuses. Is my perception wanked because I am stressed myself, or is there really a crisis of patience brewing?

I noticed it just now, as I went for a break. I had written the following for the hippo pic in IOTD, but hadn't pushed "post":

ENOUGH WITH THE DAMN GUILT, ALREADY.

You want water? You got to it before the hippo? Cheers. Hippo out of luck this go-around. If death bothers you, don't look at pictures of things dying. I have news for everyone -- stuff is born and dies pretty much independently of your existence. You and all your family and everyone you've eaten a meal with in the last 20 years could drop off the face of the planet tomorrow and not affect the annual mortality of hippos by 8 decimal places.

This "every time you eat a Big Mac, a kitten dies" mentality is dreck. We might kill ourselves off, but "The Planet" is pretty much immune. In the time you spent grieving about the hole in the ozone layer today, you could've written a letter to your mom and made a day of HER 77.3 years a little better, you narcissistic tool.

The topic of that reply isn't the important thing here. What struck me is that I never used to be so cynical. Now, 90 percent of the responses I make look like that at first, and have to have the vinegar edited out once I realize my knee is jerking. My actual thoughts on the matter are, "Yeah, people are wasteful, but you don't have to be so shrill about it. We're all just getting by the best we can." Why do I feel like I have to fire both barrels all the time? Why does it seem like everyone else feels the same way?

So, here's my theory. Life has gotten too easy. Humans are programmed for hardship -- we're physically unfit for real survival, except for a sense of community and a brain big enough to design things like air conditioning and packaged foods. But, since most of that stuff is taken care of (YMMV), we really don't have anything to worry about other than emotional issues.

As a result, our hardship-deprived minds key in on every perceived obstacle or irritant, inflating it to epic proportions and demanding that everyone around us take note of our displeasure and Do Something About It, or at least commiserate with us. Victimhood is bigger business than ever. You can be a victim of anything, from lousy cell phone coverage to some ancient wrong visited upon your ancestors.

Everyone has real problems, of course. Loved ones die, people let you down, stuff breaks and can't be fixed. But when asked to point to someone who's serene, 9/10 of us will point to a cancer patient, a victim of violence, someone living in poverty or some other horrible condition. They really have it rough, and perversely, are often happier than we are. Their minds are consumed with finding happiness instead of finding something to bitch about.

I'm blathering on here. But back to the initial question: What's everyone so pissy about?