03-14-2017, 06:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-14-2017, 06:39 PM by rva_jeremy.)
A lot of my thinking is influenced by that Eisenstein book I recommended you, Glow. Gotta plug that again -- I especially think you would find it useful based on exactly what you're wrestling with now. It's free, you know! http://charleseisenstein.net/project/the...-possible/
I second Minyatur: you gotta follow your feelings because they connect you to an intelligence that is greater than the intellectual kind that gets us into the messes. I have absolutely no idea who should have done or said what.
Generally speaking, it's difficult for me to accept that mere words can possibly constitute a reasonable or sufficiently urgent threat demanding a defense. Triggers are personal and subjective because they represent a wound, an unhealed injury in need of care, one that causes pain when it is touched far in excess of the degree of touch. I certainly believe folks deserve to heal, but I am not so certain that the rules of decorum should be bent so as to accommodate every possible injury and thereby make the entire world a hospital. Maybe I should think of it that way, I don't know; we are positively awash in trauma.
So it's always a question of where to draw the line. Rather than bicker about it, why don't we just recognize that we are on contested ground? That way, we don't build up these expectations that everybody believes like we do, and we can listen in curiosity rather than out of demand, to see what it's like to be somebody else. When we feel threatened or angered, here's one trick that works well: talk about your feelings instead of the other's actions. That doesn't place any blame on the other person, but merely witnesses how it affected you.
On the point about not sticking up for a party specifically: Glow, do you really think that I could have helped you? By what, teaming up on earth_spirit and thereby establishing more credibility for your argument than for his? What would that have accomplished? I'm genuinely curious how you think about this. I don't believe in helping in order to allay my own discomfort at seeing people in pain; I believe in helping when it can actually be useful to the person helped.
I second Minyatur: you gotta follow your feelings because they connect you to an intelligence that is greater than the intellectual kind that gets us into the messes. I have absolutely no idea who should have done or said what.
Generally speaking, it's difficult for me to accept that mere words can possibly constitute a reasonable or sufficiently urgent threat demanding a defense. Triggers are personal and subjective because they represent a wound, an unhealed injury in need of care, one that causes pain when it is touched far in excess of the degree of touch. I certainly believe folks deserve to heal, but I am not so certain that the rules of decorum should be bent so as to accommodate every possible injury and thereby make the entire world a hospital. Maybe I should think of it that way, I don't know; we are positively awash in trauma.
So it's always a question of where to draw the line. Rather than bicker about it, why don't we just recognize that we are on contested ground? That way, we don't build up these expectations that everybody believes like we do, and we can listen in curiosity rather than out of demand, to see what it's like to be somebody else. When we feel threatened or angered, here's one trick that works well: talk about your feelings instead of the other's actions. That doesn't place any blame on the other person, but merely witnesses how it affected you.
On the point about not sticking up for a party specifically: Glow, do you really think that I could have helped you? By what, teaming up on earth_spirit and thereby establishing more credibility for your argument than for his? What would that have accomplished? I'm genuinely curious how you think about this. I don't believe in helping in order to allay my own discomfort at seeing people in pain; I believe in helping when it can actually be useful to the person helped.
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