A lot of clever observations in this article, “I know what you think of me” by Tim Kreider in The New York Times, including:
I’ve often thought that the single most devastating cyberattack a diabolical and anarchic mind could design would not be on the military or financial sector but simply to simultaneously make every e-mail and text ever sent universally public. It would be like suddenly subtracting the strong nuclear force from the universe; the fabric of society would instantly evaporate, every marriage, friendship and business partnership dissolved. Civilization, which is held together by a fragile web of tactful phrasing, polite omissions and white lies, would collapse in an apocalypse of bitter recriminations and weeping, breakups and fistfights, divorces and bankruptcies, scandals and resignations, blood feuds, litigation, wholesale slaughter in the streets and lingering ill will.
And.
We all make fun of one another behind one another’s backs, even the people we love. Of course we do — they’re ridiculous. Anyone worth knowing is inevitably also going to be exasperating: making the same obvious mistakes over and over, dating imbeciles, endlessly relapsing into their dumb addictions and self-defeating habits, blind to their own hilarious flaws and blatant contradictions and fiercely devoted to whatever keeps them miserable. (And those few people about whom there is nothing ridiculous are by far the most preposterous of all.)
And.
We don’t give other people credit for the same interior complexity we take for granted in ourselves, the same capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance, for complexly alloyed affections, for bottomless generosity of heart and petty, capricious malice. We can’t believe that anyone could be unkind to us and still be genuinely fond of us, although we do it all the time.
P.S. “The context is that I had rented a herd of goats for reasons that aren’t relevant here” – oh, I beg to differ Mr Kreider, I need to know the reasons.
blue milk 
The reasons for renting the goats was probably weed control. People rent herds of goats now to remove the waist-high weeds from the side of a hill, that kind of thing. Environmentally sound and they can handle slopes.
Thank you! That makes perfect sense.
I once worked with a woman who accidentally sent an email to her daughter, whom she was having a disagreement with, that was meant for her husband and other children who she was trying to rally to her side of the argument. We worked closely enough together (physically, desk wise and I had to sit at my desk) that I overheard the horrible conversation she had with that daughter as she told her about the email and begged her not to read it. I don’t know what happened at the end.
That really stunned me, that story. Imagining what that would be like for both the mother and the daughter, being in their place. Thanks for sharing it.