Sometimes in a panic, in an emergency, we scream the obvious. 'Fire, fire!'. Or 'Drive faster, drive faster!'.
Those who we are with can already see the raging flames, smell the smoke. But we yell anyway
But what about those who have lost their sense of smell? The blind man who can't see the flames that are about to decimate his home? Children who have never heard a fire alarm and don't know which way they are supposed to run? Kids who are about to pull on the handle of a pot of boiling water? Tourists lured by sparkling blue waters and sunshine who don't understand they are about to wade into stinger or shark infested waters?
Who is screaming at them? Who is saving them?
Every day, multitudes of posts ridiculing Donald Trump, highlighting Pauline Hanson's racism, revealing another environmental tragedy, revealing more statistics on why incarceration and punishment of children is a bad idea, sharing stories of vulnerable asylum seekers trail through my Facebook feed.
I read them.
And often I start the emergency screaming, as do my friends.
'Look at this! Read this! How can this happen??!'
But I've left the blind man vulnerable. And that tourist is about to be stung. That child irreparably scarred.
So what does a fireman, a paramedic, a hospital emergency department team do when disaster strikes?
They identify those most in need of their help, they categorise them, prioritise, and they focus their attention at the hot spots.
We are preaching to the converted.
And not only that, we are ridiculing the fears and aspirations of leaders who are listening to and standing up for the fears of those who are scared and angry. While we think these leaders are creating the divide and drumming up the hate, which they are, we are pushing the divide further. The more we rally against them, the more they rally against us. Them and us. Them, the 'uneducated, conservative, hateful tyrants', us the 'naive, bleeding hearts who have never known hard work or real war, who would rather dine with a terrorist on principle than protect our own children'.
The world is confused.
There is so much information, so many voices, so many opinions, so many threats. And actually we are all pretty similar. We attempt to filter, streamline and categorise all of that in order to make sense of it. We must pick the 'right box' of instructions, detect the bass line and drown it out so we can hear the message in the lyrics.
Because we all have something we're scared of. We all have something we are trying to protect.
Family, liberty, values, our house, land, jobs. Security. Existence.
In May 2015 Facebook released a study about our exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on the social media site. It turns out, the site's maligned algorithms filter links according to social algorithms based on our friends, to give you what it thinks your beliefs and interests are, and what it thinks you might want to read. We think we're being bombarded with more information, we think we are making independent decisions on the information we consume to counteract what we are being force-fed by media outlets.
But in fact, the tunnel is closing in.
We follow users with the same opinions as our own, and inevitably, not only do our attitudes not change, we receive a warped view of the world and our previously held views become more steadfast.
It is the same for 'us' as it is for 'them'.
Now, I'm not a fan of Attorney-General George Brandis, but he does make a point about Pauline Hanson: silencing her is a "ludicrous" approach, even if her views on Islam and immigration are "unhelpful and, frankly, wrong".
In a game of chess, would you rather know how to knock out one knight, or have access to your opponents entire game plan: how they think, what their next move will be?
"I have always believed that it is absolutely the wrong idea to try and silence such people, to silence that point of view, because it's a point of view that exists in the community. Half a million people voted for Pauline Hanson or her candidates in the Senate," the Attorney-General said.
"What we have to do is we have to engage her, we have to explain why the views that she expresses about, for example, the Muslim community are unhelpful and frankly wrong."
Opposition is not our enemy. Our attackers are not our enemy.
When faced with a loaded gun, we can pull another weapon out and shoot, or stab. We may obliterate the one pointed at us, but an exponential divide, a hatred, a rallying of more guns will emerge.
Instead understand the callous glare of the gun does not see you, or us, but only what it imagines we represent.
Engage it, question it, understand it, know it.
Only then will the gaping tension dissipate.
