Living in a Parallel World

If you sit and think about things:

You get up in the morning....go through some ritual....have your bacon and eggs...shower and shave....get dressed, and then you go to a corner near the door and pick up your Walther PPK pistol clip.  Thirty years ago, you traveled safely to work....today, you are convinced that threats exist and the only way to survive each day....is to carry the Walther PPK with you.  The fact that you might have to terminate some crazy 16-year-old kid who is all doped up on something and intending to kill six people at the gas station?  Well....it's part of the parallel world that you live in and accept.

You've attended such-and-such church for forty years and never had to think beyond the Bible or some prophecies.  Now you show up and there's chatter over climate change, your social behavior expectations, people criticizing others over their voting habits, and some suggestion that you might not be religious enough.  Well....you quiet down....less chatter and refuse to engage in general conversation.  That's the only way to survive in this parallel world that you accepted.

You work for a company where for years.....normal chatter was accepted, and over the past ten years.....political chatter has made you uncomfortable.  It's to the point where you don't talk with people much or care about their families or woes.  That's the only way to survive in this parallel world that you accepted.

You have relatives who you used to get with several times a year and enjoy conversations.  Today?  You avoid these meetings for the most part and you tend to stick with just sports, deaths in the family, or the weather.  That's the only way to survive in this parallel world that you accepted.

You are in a decent marriage with someone that you generally cared about.  Today?  Politically, you don't match-up well with that person.  You go to counseling and try to avoid talking politics or news.  That's the only way to survive in this parallel world that you accepted.

The list goes on and on.

This parallel world is like some science fiction piece from HBO....you are the alien guy who simply grins over things and tries to act cheerful.....but you survive only because you limit your actions and have accepted this parallel world as a doomed but last-resort place. 

Something is wrong here, but you just can't figure out what it is.