This is a very serious matter of global importance. Social media, the double-edged sword of life, have become for toxic people both a home and their global headquarters. They live everywhere on those virtual platforms, always ready to pounce or prey on even the most innocent. To show you how prevalent these terminal sadists are, not one minute passes without a toxic engagement on Facebook or Twitter or any of the numerous other social media platforms nor is there any user who hasn’t encountered these trolls one way or the other.
But, who is a toxic person? Well, a toxic person appears to different people differently; exactly the same way six blind people who touched an elephant ended up describing the lasrgest existing land animal differently; according to the part they had touched. While some people see a toxic person as insane and stupid, others think them annoying and hateful. Those in another school of thought believe a toxic person is just a crazy and playful entertainer who can cause no harm.
To be sure, a toxic person should never be toyed with. They are witches and wizards; they mean harm and can cause harm. They practise daylight witchcraft; pumping negative energy into your brain and space as well as into the air at every encounter. They deliberately position to upset and unsettle you, per time.
They manipulate you. They gaslight you. They make you feel inadequate, too small and almost always as if you have too much catching up to do. Every engagement with toxic people leaves you drained, doubting yourself; like you have to prove something.
They like to throw up headless, tailless arguments which only they must win or such needless ventures would go on forever. Toxic people are spoilt brats and there’s no cure for them. Toxic people are direct descendants of Satan on earth. They are his major agents and representatives, and they work full-time for their evil master, offline and online.
Toxic people have led far too many into depression and quarrels, or to wars and even death. Most of them are brazen; they disguise nothing. Some of these agents of darkness deploy subtle strategies. Notwithstanding, it is so easy to spot a toxic person.
They never have a good word to say or add; always confrontational, always critical, always cynical, always malicious, always pugnacious. They are the permanent carriers and purveyors of bitterness and misery. They add no value to any one or situation, whatever. In fact, they remove every value they meet; they devalue with abandon everyone, everything, every situation.
They make you question yourself, your memory and all. You must be especially strong for the toxic person to leave you complete as you were. Sometimes, the effect is minimal and gradual. Other times, it is full blast and immediate.
The point here is that there’s always an effect, once you encounter these toxic chiefs; these people who curse, hate and insult for a living. Even if you succeed in giving them their place, your conscience might later chide you. You may even later apologise to them. Imagine ending up apologising to someone who had set out but had failed to hurt you!
That’s how infinitesimally dangerous those evil players are. You can never win with them. With toxic people, the few occasions you manage to defeat them your God-mind coaxes you to start feeling sorry (as a believer) that perhaps you were too hard. Alas, the many times you lose against them, chances are you may not live to tell the story or to fight another day.
It’s a tricky situation, really: a catch-22. Toxic people leave you in a cul-de-sac, both ends. It’s best to never encounter them. However, if or rather when they bump into you, there are ways to diffuse or divert or evade their customary insults, cursing and sundry forms of hate speech.
Before we delve into all of that though, let’s establish two premises. One, you don’t need to do or say anything to attract or provoke toxic people. They just come; because they are all over the place like their master who traverses to and fro looking for whom to devour. Two, while you yourself must ensure you don’t jump on the board the bandwagon and become like them, you should also do everything to keep away from this toxic company.
Don’t answer them. Don’t call them out. Don’t provoke them. Don’t tempt them.
This is what I call the neutral gear of driving away toxic people. If you have the head and the heart (that is, the knowledge and the confidence that whatever toxic people say or do or write would never hurt you before sane people) ignoring their shenanigans is the way to go. That way, there’s never a meeting point between them and you. In my case, I never listen to or read their entries -even those against my so-called (worst) enemies!
My mind is clean and clear. Everything and everybody toxic is locked out. I never invite nor play with fire. I lock out fire possibilities and readily extinguish unforeseen versions.
Now, if you decide you can no longer tolerate or ignore toxic people, you do not necessarily need to descend into the arena. You may always delete their comments or ultimately block them, physically and virtually -and spiritually; whatever that means. Make sure to never be within their earshot or space. If you have mutual friends who relay their toxicity, quietly delete or block them.
Spare such friends and spoil your mental health chances. I have unfriended so many all because I saw that they personified the open windows through which the toxicity I had locked my physical, spiritual and virtual doors to still stole through to me. For as long as I live, I shall never tire of permanently shutting such doors and windows every time I notice them. This strategy is talismanic.
Concerning arguing out your case with toxic people: well, I can only wish you well. If you nurse pedagogic ambitions with this approach, simply test the waters. If the response indicates teachability, continue; if violent, block. These are the only two safest ways out with these character assassins and destiny murderers.
Of course, government across all strata can stand up to this ubiquitous menace with implementable laws that carry commensurate weight. The church, the home, the mosque, the school, and such other institutions of attitudes, ethics, and morals must speak up against these haters of good and peace. Society must pay no attention to their tales nor should mainstream media dignify the arrant nonsense with more mileage. Since toxic people only survive via feeding on the ungodly crave of an alarming majority for gossip and bad news, we can run them out of town and out of business by never applauding or gloating over let alone sharing their entries.
God bless Nigeria!
Everything is a risk
Life is risk-centric: from start to finish. At birth, you grope all the way not sure about the day or the night of your last breath. You are told to grab the best education and to keep good and to keep right at all times.
You follow the manual and despite all the concomitant risks, you acquire all the education you can but other risks suddenly show up. You find yourself either unemployable or unemployed or both or underpaid or unpaid or both. Or employed by or working under the same dropout or the same dunce you used to either help or scorn.
Elsewhere, all the goodness you evinced only threw up evil risks. Like being exploited or being taken for granted or paid back with evil. On the other hand, those who ought to know better accommodate, celebrate, fear, love and respect the evil doer.
Then, when the bell goes, just as you didn’t and don’t know where you came from; you head off like a zombie not knowing your destination nor the direction. The risks with death are immense. How on earth can you say for sure that you won’t miss your way and end up at that place of the fiery furnace?
As I see it and I believe this is how every human being should approach risk: we are plus and minus risk takers, all of us. Take all risks one way or the other and enjoy the consequences. You are already dead if you live afraid of or inhibited by risk!