Motus Mentis

In discourse these days, whether about politics, religion, philosophy, or any of the other topics that seem so effectively to get everybody’s knickers in a twist, we will all have observed by now that some people have what is known as a “short fuse”. I’ve been noticing that quite a few folks go one better, and operate on what might be thought of, if we are willing to test the metaphor’s tensile strength, as a “proximity” fuse: they detonate at the expression of any thought that so much as reminds them of whatever it is that they are crusading against.

Such minds are like eels lurking in the coral, snapping at whatever shiny object paddles by. I suppose other eels find them attractive, but to swimmers they are merely a nuisance.