Mender or Breaker: A Confession from the Comment Thread Trenches

I want to help repair what’s broken—but I keep getting sucked into fights with people who only want to tear things down.

I let myself get pulled into it again.

A thread. A post. A spicy take. A stranger tossing grenades just to watch them explode. I knew better, but I jumped in anyway — full of counterpoints, clarity, maybe even a little moral superiority. Shariff Abdullah would call this person a breaker — someone whose energy goes into tearing things apart. And me? I want to be a mender.

But in that moment, I wasn’t mending anything. Not understanding. Not the social fabric. Not even my own peace of mind. I was just reacting — fast, righteous, and ultimately depleted.

This isn’t about one online spat. It’s about a habit. The way we get drawn into battles that feel meaningful but aren’t aligned with who we’re trying to become. The way being “right” can hijack the actual work of being helpful. Or compassionate. Or strategic.

Shariff Abdullah makes a distinction between menders and breakers. Menders are the ones stitching things back together. They tend to wounds — social, cultural, systemic. They don’t just construct; they repair. They listen more than they shout. They take the long view.

Breakers, on the other hand, are driven by fear, ego, control. They interrupt. They derail. They don’t care about nuance or resolution — only domination.

And here’s the tricky part: breakers are very, very loud. Menders are usually busy doing actual work — holding conversations, tending relationships, reimagining systems — so they’re not always the ones commanding attention. And that’s how I got caught.

I saw a breaker doing what breakers do: ridiculing, provoking, swinging blunt arguments like weapons. And I thought, somebody should respond to this.
That somebody turned out to be me, arguing back in a thread at 11:47 PM, trying to out-rationalize someone who wasn’t even listening.

And of course, that was the point. Breakers don’t want dialogue. They want the drama. And I gave it to them — energy, attention, validation. Like handing a troll a megaphone and then wondering why everything got louder and uglier.

It’s humbling to realize how easy it is to slip into breaker-adjacent behavior — especially when we think we’re being noble. That rush of moral urgency? That “I can’t let this go unanswered” impulse? That’s how we lose the thread. That’s how they win.

Because mending doesn’t look like victory. It looks like patience. Like walking away. Like saying, “Not here. Not like this.” Sometimes, the most radical thing you can do is not respond.

Shariff Abdullah’s menders aren’t heroes in capes. They’re people who make a decision, over and over, to stay committed. To tend instead of attack. To respond instead of react. To do the slower, quieter work that doesn’t trend but does matter.

So this is my confession — and my recalibration. I want to mend. That means logging off sometimes. Letting the bait float by. Saving my effort for real conversations, not staged conflict. Remembering that not everything broken can be fixed with a clapback. Some things need care. Time. Perspective.

Sometimes, mending begins with doing nothing — and choosing not to match the energy of those tearing things apart.

Because the future doesn’t need more wrecking balls.

It needs more hands on the seams.

Sometimes, the most radical thing you can do is not respond.