It occurred to me today that what we see going on around us, in a lot of ways, is a refinement process.

I’ve noticed many of the people, who I have for many years been associating with, who have, in the current circumstances of our world, changed in the way that they are dealing with things. Normally, positive and happy people turning vengeful and negative and dark over the last few months. I can’t even tell you how many people I’ve recently been snoozing or blocking on social media because all they seem to have to say these days is poisonous drivel.

It makes me wonder whether or not the vast majority of people are, most of the time, just pretending to be something they’re not. Most of the time, circumstances in America are fairly pleasant, and these ‘friends’ of mine are able to keep up the facade, as long as their level of discomfort is relatively low. But, when the heat is on, people fall away from the civil agreement –that we are all going to behave ourselves– pretty damn quickly.

Now that I’ve come to think of it, I don’t think you ever really get to see the true quality of a person if you don’t ever see that person under stress. I’ve noticed that people tend to be responding to the difficulties that we’ve been facing in either positive or negative ways. I have counted myself surprised on more than one occasion recently to have encountered people, who I normally would have considered pretty positive people, who are turning sour in the midst of our current hardships.

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They say that you can’t ever really know how pure gold is until you melt it down; the temperature at which gold becomes liquid is about 1900 degrees Fahrenheit. So, my gold wedding ring isn’t going to melt on the hottest of days under normal circumstances while I’m wearing it around town. However, if you heat it up enough, it will melt.

When metal is subjected to extreme heat and is melted, what rises to the top of the molten metal is skimmed off the top as impurities, leaving a more refined metal product. Through this process, supposedly, gold is able to be purified to the point where it is 99.5% pure gold.

But, it doesn’t sound like much fun for the gold.

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So, this hasn’t been anybody’s idea of a picture-perfect year thus far. You could even go so far as to describe this year as ‘extreme’, like ‘melting gold at 1900 degrees extreme’. Maybe, that’s what’s going on with the people around me that I see who seem to be losing their normal grip on reality. Something different rises to the top when they are put to the test.

And I’m in the same boat.

For me, my reaction to the circumstances we’re in right now has been a little different, although I have most certainly been tempted to jump on the negativity train just recently.

For me, I’ve started questioning things.

Psychologically, the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ comes to mind (check out Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory for more information). As soon as we are made to notice that our beliefs and opinions are out of whack with reality, we are motivated to do whatever is necessary to bring these back into alignment. People are not meant to live in a life where their beliefs don’t match up with reality. They will often go to great extremes to bring these into a balance.

So, how do people go about relieving the pressure of cognitive dissonance? Well, the three major approaches, according to the theory, are 1) change our behaviors to bring them into alignment with reality, 2) justify our behaviors so that the mismatch between them and reality is more tolerable, or 3) ignore or deny what we are being told about reality.

The situation is quite horrible, when you come to think about it: we’ve been running around, operating under a false sense of security, that has been shattered. So, what do we do with the idea that we are living in a world that can be significantly disrupted by a global viral infection event? To become comfortable with our circumstances once again, we need to change, justify, or ignore.

Changing our behaviors to bring them into alignment with reality, as an approach to relieving our cognitive dissonance, would include things like following the advice of medical experts, doing what is recommended to stay safe out in public, etc..

Of course, we can also justify our behaviors. I’ve heard plenty of justifications from plenty of people from a variety of different groups. Each of them has their own justification for explaining the difference between what they say and do and what reality looks like.

But, I think the most dangerous way to go about dealing with this particular situation is the third approach –> denial.

If I have to block one more person on social media who has posted something about the COVID hoax, I am going to LOSE MY MIND!!!!

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I guess, when it’s all said and done, everybody is just trying to do the best they can with what’s happening. I just think some people are doing a better job of adapting to the situation than others. When the heat gets turned up, and we all reach our melting point, what impurities have bubbled to the surface in your life?