Last week, the geniuses at Slate put together an incredible piece about “The Year of Outrage” – tracking what America was so mad about in 2014.

For every day of the year.

Safe to say that based upon this study, it would seem as though our faux anger has created actual, real emotions. This is both sad and slightly scary, meaning that we are having an increasingly difficult time determining what is real, what is fake and how to react to both.

We can get a false sense of just about anything these days. We can generate fear and reaction into someone with a post, an e-mail, a text. We can misrepresent what matters and what does not.

We are less connected physically, but through technology, social media and various work “efficiencies” we are more connected psychologically.

And let’s be honest, our psychological make-up is not always the most stable of places.

We are flat-out terrified of stuff that just does not matter, yet increasingly numb to that which does.

We do not see things the same way, leading the vast majority of us to react quite differently to the same situation.

For example, an e-mail sent by a co-worker at 10:14pm, over something that could not only be handled tomorrow, but next week, create for some a sense of dread or panic that they have done something wrong to receive said message at said hour of the day. The sender, by contrast, was just knocking out a few “to do” items and not really paying attention to the time of day or the subject matter.

This faux anxiety creates faux stress that feels as real as you can imagine. That stress leads to anger and lashing out at the smallest of things – like perceiving someone cut you off in traffic, leading to a real finger being flashed and real bad words being used.

Thus, often, our perception of reality becomes our reality.

Millions of Americans deal with differing levels of anxiety and to me, there can be no doubt this is contributing factor to our reactions. The best way to describe an anxiety attack is the feeling of being charged by a bear, when there is, in fact, no bear.

It cannot help us out psychologically when we get worked up over something that’s been put out on the line that we have no part in or cannot control. We’re manufacturing our own dramas. We’re desensitized, yet somehow overly worked up at the same time.

A sampling of the topics that made us grab our verbal pitchforks and raise fury like hell hath no in 2014? Just your usual mixed bag: bad jokes by people and companies, how people react and respond to each other in positions of power and authority and of course, race. Typically, it is how we reacted in hindsight that seems most perplexing.

If we’re so outraged all the time, how do we survive? If our not entirely true feelings are coming out in a very real way, how do we know when we’re actually experiencing anything real? How do we know if we’re really angry? How are we not just becoming the slightest bit numb and missing the things that matter?

Do we even know the difference anymore?

Rage is more of a controllable anger. Outrage seems to encompass some sort of moral or ethical fury. As Slate mentions in their piece, it feels showy and a little false. Probably because in America in 2014, the outrage is just that – a faux show.

We kind of enjoy putting on the show. For each other, for ourselves.

More people are outraged at Sony for pulling “The Interview” than people who were actually planning to see “The Interview.” If you didn’t plan to see the movie, what do you care that a studio wasted millions on a film and marketing only to pull it? What possible moral or ethical outcry could there be to this? Yet, there it was, headlining the news, trending on social media.

The show must go on.

Of course, there are the topics we were outraged by – like social issues – in a possibly decent and entirely pure way, but of course, both sides of the discussion blew it because we got snide, hateful, over generalized and just looked and sounded insane most of the time.

Most of our stories pass through the life cycle partly on their merit (newsworthiness) and partly – largely – due to how we react to it. “It” only becomes a thing if we let it, allow it or want it to. But who can actually tell what we really care about and what we faux care about anymore.

The general theory goes that in anger, you tend to not listen very well. If we’re so outraged and blinded by vengeful anger at all these topics and sensitive subjects in the world, how on earth are we going to have a proper discourse and actually build a bridge to solving said problems?

Ever argue with your spouse or significant other? The rage and indignation rises to a level that virtually blocks both of you out and all you can hear and see is the anger. The words don’t matter as much as the tone.

No point on earth can be made and accepted through shouting down, demeaning, mocking or condescending the opposing side. Uh, they already oppose you…so…certainly your remarkably smarmy attitude will win friends and influence people over to your side, right?

And after the anger and outrage have subsided, you might have a chance to get somewhere with the person opposite you.

Yet outrage exists as a kind of mental bomb. You cannot see it, but once it goes off, the effects of the outrage last much longer than you think they do. And the next time someone says something, they are gently traipsing through the mental mine field of your outrage, trying to avoid the buzz words or things they believe set you off before.

Or they just don’t even bother, which is kind of worse, because it means we’ve stopped caring.

We’ve all been there. It’s the people in your life that are actually no longer in your life. The ones you stopped seeing and calling – or the family you deal with at major events, but say nothing of relevance to anymore because it just is not worth the hassle of taking another hit of their outrage.

This is my overall fear: That we will stop caring about the stuff that actually matters because we’re too outraged and obsessed with the stuff that doesn’t – or too busy avoiding the social media bullies to realize we’ve become one of them.

We see what the backlash does to people, every day folks like you and me, writers, media types, celebrities. It crushes them like a tidal wave. The vitriol and anger override anything else, swallowing them whole, exacerbating the moment, most of the time making the reaction to a reaction a bigger moment than the moment.

Fake emotional outbursts create real damage.  They create situations where there are none. These have been dubbed “nontroversies.”

By the look of it, we specialize in nontroversies, but what do we do when the indignation and public shaming passes, when the offending party has been branded, fired or both? Then what?

Simple.

On to the next one.

And we leave the trash and damage for someone else to pick-up. It’s not our problem.

This is the faux show.

This is America – where we pretend to care about that which matters little, where we put on our show, where we seek to portray the picture of perfection, of wealth, of happiness.

Except that we are broken inside, broke on the outside and empty all over.

The best gift this holiday season is one you can give both to yourself and help spread to others: be different. Don’t engage in the minutia, the gossip, the social media mobs. Stay positive, do not the negativity eat away your ability to discern the difference between what is real and what is imagined.

Know what is important. Spend some time thinking about that. Live in the present and embrace the unknown. Expect nothing. Calculate little. Just live and be.

Know that the only currency that truly matters in this world is faith, hope and love. Their value is immeasurable, which is why they are a treasure.

And those three – faith, hope and love – are the most real emotions you could ever experience.

Here’s to the hope that 2015 will be the Year of Anything But Anger.

Real or fake.