I'm just beginning my recovery from whatever makes "us vs. them" turn into "everyone vs. me" at a young age, I guess. I'm pretty sure this way of thinking isn'

I'm just beginning my recovery from whatever makes "us vs. them" turn into "everyone vs. me" at a young age, I guess. I'm pretty sure this way of thinking isn't being instilled systematically from the top down, but it is happening at a very large scale. What's creating this "us vs. them" which kids often interpret as "everyone vs. me," is that there are so many easy ways out of feeling pain (and thus, ways out of learning how to live as a basic human) that we're in the process of forgetting how to deal with our emotions. We opt for solitary escape early on, because that's how our parents dealt with their issues too (their parents likely believed in pulling up bootstraps, or something). And then we/they continue to opt for escape via any sensory experience available in consumer capitalist society, most recently in socially acceptable life-escape games like Facebook and Twitter. We know it's not an authentic social feed, that it's actually designed to be a game you play with yourself where your social circle makes up the characters. What happens if that real-life game turns against you though, or if your mind simply starts to think they're turning against you? Mass shootings[1], terrorism[2], and Trump[3], I think. If the horrors of modern American childhood don't happen at home, by the hand of adults who also sought solace from their fears in similar ways, these horrors usually happen in school, where they spend the rest of their time. From fellow classmates who figure out that bullies get their way, and clever bullies get their way even more. Us vs. them happens very early on, and when kids seek out solo escape via phones, games, whatever, well that's the beginning of a neverending search via consumer society for some answer that can allow them to live with the thoughts in their head. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States#Deadliest_shootings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States#Recent_trends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States... [3] https://i.imgur.com/crG3EeQ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/crG3EeQ.jpg