I'm in my morning stream of consciousness mode, so forgive me if I meander a bit. I'm drinking coffee and ridding my senses of sleepiness, and sometimes that's a great time to write. Other times, well, depending on what you are writing and whom you are addressing, it can be not such a good thing. It's one reason I started my web page and blogging. I found myself trying to clarify my thoughts and ideas to an inappropriate audience (i.e. nearly strangers who might misinterpret the intent or not care or not understand), and it finally occurred to me (DUH!) that as a writer and a thinker, I had something to say. I should say it somewhere else. So here I am at Poetry and Polemics discussing the Luxurious Choices we make in life and how those choices might affect the world.
Here's a choice: decide who your audience will be. Try to avoid total Internet wackos. I define a wacko as someone who wants to move Internet animosity from the net to real life. Obviously, when you have a blog, there is always this risk, but there are so many blogs and some of them so much more radical that I would be a boring target. I might raise a few eyebrows in my own community, but I don't think I am saying anything universally troubling or so far "out there" that a wacko would choose ME as a target.
It occurs to me I might be daring trouble by putting that statement out there, but it's a fact of blogging and Internet life that there are some not-so-kind people who take it to the next level and bring it into the physical world. Then again, it might be some of these people have already brought it to the physical world and are just now bringing it to the web-world. It depends on the wacko.
Remember, I am mostly talking about hatred and violence here. I'm not talking about eccentrics (goodness....that would be ME!) or even people that might look radical on the page but are not in real life. Some of those people are just doing it for effect, to get a little more attention. Some of them are just venting. Some of them are serious, though, and that, as my friend Kathleen just wrote to me, is scary. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the venting and curious from the real and serious wackos. Hatred is scary stuff.
I know I am sometimes offensive to people here on my blog, and in general, unless I get picked on, I don't care. I don't think I have been picked on, but if I WERE...I would be really pissed (is "pissed" a swear?) and argue it's my right to express free speech. It's my right to go to public meetings and say what I will. It is NOT my right to inflict my beliefs personally on others or take my personal angst physically out on individuals. So, for example, I'm not fond of some of my local politicians' decisions or their public manifestations of their beliefs. But I wouldn't try to run them over. There's the difference.
Writing, journalism, participation in democracy....that is free speech. "I (might) disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" so long as it's not intruding on MY freedom. If you are radical and have something to say, I think you ought to save it for the right forum. And try not to be mean. Save it for the polls or something even more public. But keep it organized and peaceful, please.
This brings me to the topic of marches. When I was a kid, I used to watch marches all the time on television. My parents weren't ones to shield me from the evening news, and I saw a lot of bigotry and hatred live. I also watched movies like Billy Jack, and my sense of moral and social justice was deeply offended at an early age. I am quite sure I have not grown out of that.
I was quiet as a kid. I had a hard time expressing my thoughts and feelings, partly because I was just that way vocally, and partly because my father, the stern Sicilian, mandated it. I "knew my place" as a child and as a female. I was the underdog, the only girl child. Many of my thoughts went to paper and not to my parents, and so I thought a lot.
I remember sitting in Kindergarten while the teacher read a Raggedy Ann story to the class. I couldn't have cared less about Raggedy Ann. I was thinking, "Why are we here...on the planet?" Yesterday, my ten year old asked me the very same thing as we were volunteering at a food pantry. I was taken aback by the sudden question, not that we hadn't discussed this before, but because of her timing. "Getting philosophical, are we?" I asked. "We are here to make the world a better a place." I spared her my beliefs on reincarnation and how we are forced to live with the decisions we make now and the kind of planet we have created.
We've discussed these beliefs of mine before, but I told her those are MY beliefs. We've talked about other beliefs as well (heaven/hell, for example). I'd like her to be exposed to all kinds of beliefs, by ultimately, I would like my kids to believe in some kind of God and believe in making the world a better place. They can choose the venue for that later. There's plenty of time for them to choose a particular doctrine if they want. Or if they don't want. I'm not hung up on doctrine.
I AM hung up on non-violence. Oh yeah. This brings me back to marches. I like the idea of marches. What I don't like is a march at which some perhaps initially well-intentioned person loses his/her head and acts in such a way that undermines the march. When I watched the marches on television as a kid, I saw a lot of that. Such group behavior made me sick and scared. Group behavior in general scares me to this day. The mob mentality is horrifying. If you want to see a scary movie, watch the most recent making of War of the Worlds. Absolutely human nature at its worst in some scenes. I got that same sick feeling I used to get as a kid.
Lots of historical things were happening right before my birth that affected my family, and of course, these things followed me through childhood. Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968, the year of my brother's birth, brought memories back for my mother who remembered watching it. She relayed it to us. The Kennedy assassinations. Woodstock. Viet Nam. Watergate. The Cold War. Kent State. These were backdrops of my childhood. And the people who actually lived these things were my role models. Very confusing and frightening indeed.
I think about bringing up children in this current time of war and cultural strife and how that will affect them in the future. I want them to be able to make sense of it all without being as scared as I was. I don't know if we can avoid that all together, and a little of the emotion that goes with world events is not always a bad thing. I think about the children here and abroad who are scarred by war every day, and I remember how lucky we are here in spite of our sometimes ridiculous national selves. And I thank God I am here. But that doesn't mean we get to ignore the rest of the world and live in our personal Nirvanas. I think that's irresponsible. Constant day dreaming isn't something the world can afford.
Anyway....here's what I think about in the morning. That's sort of scary in itself, isn't it? Some people wake up with a kind of tabula rasa. Not me. I think I process this stuff all night and bring it to the mornings with me. It's sometimes hard having busy-brain like this. But I wouldn't give it up. It's important to me. So I will just take my usual nap later. An hour off in the afternoon isn't going to kill anyone, and that's more than we can say for other choices we make in life.
To this new day and the choices we make. May peace be with us.
Here's a choice: decide who your audience will be. Try to avoid total Internet wackos. I define a wacko as someone who wants to move Internet animosity from the net to real life. Obviously, when you have a blog, there is always this risk, but there are so many blogs and some of them so much more radical that I would be a boring target. I might raise a few eyebrows in my own community, but I don't think I am saying anything universally troubling or so far "out there" that a wacko would choose ME as a target.
It occurs to me I might be daring trouble by putting that statement out there, but it's a fact of blogging and Internet life that there are some not-so-kind people who take it to the next level and bring it into the physical world. Then again, it might be some of these people have already brought it to the physical world and are just now bringing it to the web-world. It depends on the wacko.
Remember, I am mostly talking about hatred and violence here. I'm not talking about eccentrics (goodness....that would be ME!) or even people that might look radical on the page but are not in real life. Some of those people are just doing it for effect, to get a little more attention. Some of them are just venting. Some of them are serious, though, and that, as my friend Kathleen just wrote to me, is scary. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the venting and curious from the real and serious wackos. Hatred is scary stuff.
I know I am sometimes offensive to people here on my blog, and in general, unless I get picked on, I don't care. I don't think I have been picked on, but if I WERE...I would be really pissed (is "pissed" a swear?) and argue it's my right to express free speech. It's my right to go to public meetings and say what I will. It is NOT my right to inflict my beliefs personally on others or take my personal angst physically out on individuals. So, for example, I'm not fond of some of my local politicians' decisions or their public manifestations of their beliefs. But I wouldn't try to run them over. There's the difference.
Writing, journalism, participation in democracy....that is free speech. "I (might) disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" so long as it's not intruding on MY freedom. If you are radical and have something to say, I think you ought to save it for the right forum. And try not to be mean. Save it for the polls or something even more public. But keep it organized and peaceful, please.
This brings me to the topic of marches. When I was a kid, I used to watch marches all the time on television. My parents weren't ones to shield me from the evening news, and I saw a lot of bigotry and hatred live. I also watched movies like Billy Jack, and my sense of moral and social justice was deeply offended at an early age. I am quite sure I have not grown out of that.
I was quiet as a kid. I had a hard time expressing my thoughts and feelings, partly because I was just that way vocally, and partly because my father, the stern Sicilian, mandated it. I "knew my place" as a child and as a female. I was the underdog, the only girl child. Many of my thoughts went to paper and not to my parents, and so I thought a lot.
I remember sitting in Kindergarten while the teacher read a Raggedy Ann story to the class. I couldn't have cared less about Raggedy Ann. I was thinking, "Why are we here...on the planet?" Yesterday, my ten year old asked me the very same thing as we were volunteering at a food pantry. I was taken aback by the sudden question, not that we hadn't discussed this before, but because of her timing. "Getting philosophical, are we?" I asked. "We are here to make the world a better a place." I spared her my beliefs on reincarnation and how we are forced to live with the decisions we make now and the kind of planet we have created.
We've discussed these beliefs of mine before, but I told her those are MY beliefs. We've talked about other beliefs as well (heaven/hell, for example). I'd like her to be exposed to all kinds of beliefs, by ultimately, I would like my kids to believe in some kind of God and believe in making the world a better place. They can choose the venue for that later. There's plenty of time for them to choose a particular doctrine if they want. Or if they don't want. I'm not hung up on doctrine.
I AM hung up on non-violence. Oh yeah. This brings me back to marches. I like the idea of marches. What I don't like is a march at which some perhaps initially well-intentioned person loses his/her head and acts in such a way that undermines the march. When I watched the marches on television as a kid, I saw a lot of that. Such group behavior made me sick and scared. Group behavior in general scares me to this day. The mob mentality is horrifying. If you want to see a scary movie, watch the most recent making of War of the Worlds. Absolutely human nature at its worst in some scenes. I got that same sick feeling I used to get as a kid.
Lots of historical things were happening right before my birth that affected my family, and of course, these things followed me through childhood. Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968, the year of my brother's birth, brought memories back for my mother who remembered watching it. She relayed it to us. The Kennedy assassinations. Woodstock. Viet Nam. Watergate. The Cold War. Kent State. These were backdrops of my childhood. And the people who actually lived these things were my role models. Very confusing and frightening indeed.
I think about bringing up children in this current time of war and cultural strife and how that will affect them in the future. I want them to be able to make sense of it all without being as scared as I was. I don't know if we can avoid that all together, and a little of the emotion that goes with world events is not always a bad thing. I think about the children here and abroad who are scarred by war every day, and I remember how lucky we are here in spite of our sometimes ridiculous national selves. And I thank God I am here. But that doesn't mean we get to ignore the rest of the world and live in our personal Nirvanas. I think that's irresponsible. Constant day dreaming isn't something the world can afford.
Anyway....here's what I think about in the morning. That's sort of scary in itself, isn't it? Some people wake up with a kind of tabula rasa. Not me. I think I process this stuff all night and bring it to the mornings with me. It's sometimes hard having busy-brain like this. But I wouldn't give it up. It's important to me. So I will just take my usual nap later. An hour off in the afternoon isn't going to kill anyone, and that's more than we can say for other choices we make in life.
To this new day and the choices we make. May peace be with us.
