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madame_zora said:I love these kinds of introspective threads because they give us the opportunity to see inside each other's thought processes, and hopefully lead to a better understanding of where a particular poster is coming from.
I appreciate in sincerity everyone who has posted here, that we may know each other better. You guys rock.
So do I.
It's an attempt, should we all care to pay careful attention, to help us all know one another better in other threads. And in the process I can honestly say that I'm more aware of the styles of easily 5 prominent posters here than I was prior to reading through the whole thread. Plus I think I was able to mend an old wound with our pal DC. "It's a good thing".:smile:
With such strong personalities here (and unquestionable intelligence) it's critical we all know the other's intent. Manners for me is a first cousin to kindness whereas rudeness is a sibling to malicious intent.
To illustrate my point I still feel a bit uneasy about the gang mentality used toward pichulon and our "once upon a time" fellow poster Webster. In the former case I feel less sad about it since he was/is so relentless. With Webster I think he would have eventually come around. And in his case I think it was a pity he was so ostracized. I miss him. He had a lovely "odd duck" quality to him that reminded me of a guy named Wendell who was lovely and alone and adorable standing there with his gin and tonic a decade ago at the biggest gay bar in Boston. But Wendell had a heart of gold. Trouble is no one took the time to know him. When I think of Webster I see Wendell's face in my mind's eye.
Today I've had an off-again on-again interesting pm conversation with a fellow poster who's quite enlightened in his observational take. He's someone with whom I've never chatted privately until today. He first pmed me this morning to discuss not only this thread but also one which became very heated a short while back. His perspective has given me immense insight.
What I've gleaned from our conversation is the following:
(Admittedly off-topic) I think it prudent we all guard against developing gang mentality when the negative consensus begins to rise on this board lest we all become precisely guilty of what we so vehemently decry in those we seek to condemn or squelch. Recently I did this with pichulon. Much as I dislike the fellow's statements I think he hasn't a clue why most find him so offensive and I wish I'd simply stopped posting to him long before I did. I know his confusion goes on as recently as the last time I clicked onto this board since I have pm proof. So what's the point then? Have we accomplished something by our unkindness? I say we haven't. I think we just come off looking like a bunch of arrogant bullies.
In my opinion it's an easy trap to fall into (this gang thing) and I'm seeing more and more of it lately. And before I see this place become "clique central". I'll happily remain marginalized by purpose.
If simply giving the benefit of the doubt is a lesson I can take from this thread then I take it willingly. I know enough personally about being unpopular on this board to recognize how uncomfortable it can be to be targeted as the "board baddie". It has all the hallmarks of a rather vile playground phenomenon and I can say without question that dong20 has handled every situation (when he went against the board "grain") with reason and civility no matter how much he may have been taken to task.
What's most telling to me is that I read his responses every time while other's who are more direct and inflammatory I often skip by.
I feel we can all learn from his level-headed approach. If those are "manners"... I like 'em. Yup I do. Because the fellow's genuine. We can pick apart wheter or not the manners are "genuine" or "false" all we like but I suspect the bulk of us know the difference. I know I'll never reach his level of impartial posting but I'm happy someone in here is of his caliber since he's an example for the rest of us.
We're all part of the larger "recipe" in this thing folks. And as the saying goes "it'd be a damned boring existence if we were all just alike". So I'd simply ask that the level of kindness be raised a level or two when we take issue with what someone's written.
It's just plain exhausting to stoop to the level of calling names. I'd rather never feel the need to do it again.