It's been a long time since I posted on here. A very long time. But I think I'm back now. I took what I thought would be a short break, but it somehow stretched out.
I took that break because I realized that I needed some time before I was ready to handle a blog like this with it's mental and emotional demands. What does that mean? It means that I started this blog about a year after the death of my son. I thought that a year after he died, I would be able to started a blog like this and manage it, but I realized that it required too much emotional energy to disagree and discuss things with other people. Too much mental energy too. You'd be surprised how much grief takes out of you and for how long. Trust me.
It has now been three years since he died. I think now I might be able to handle this blog. I hope so. I'm going to try, anyway. Blogging is important to me, it seems.
It has never been a secret to me that I am an emotional person. I have always suspected that it might be a weakness of mine. More and more I realize that we are all pretty much emotional people. It is, I think, just about as hard for everyone else to be fair, logical, measured and patient, as it is for me. This sort of thing makes having a good and productive discussion about issues that we feel strongly about very difficult. And yet, what else is really worth discussing? The weather?
So, I am going to write about things that are important to me. Things I think about a lot. Sometimes I am going to feel quite strongly about these things as well. I am going to try, (Lord, please help me) to be fair, logical, measured and patient. For a start. And I'm going to hope that when I write something you feel strongly about (and by strongly, I mean maybe angry or upset), that you will try to remember that however annoying and wrong headed I might be, my intentions are not to hurt you, or anger you, or drive you crazy.
With that said, I have a pet peeve. Actually I have lots of pet peeves, but I am not here to discuss why men should leave the toilet seat down. And if you are man, don't take that comment personally. Toilet seats are morally neutral, it's not you, it's me. This pet peeve is about how facebook has become heaven for bumper sticker sloganisms. (Nothing as fun as making words up. I admit it, I made that word up.) I hesitate to say that, because so many of you post em. And all the people I know who post them are friends and people I love because those are the only people on my facebook. If you are not on my facebook but you post sloganisms, this is still about you. Don't think you are getting off scott free! :)
Anyway, I hate bumper stickers and facebook is full of what basically amounts to that, only sometimes they are even longer than what would normally fit on a bumper.
One of the maniy offenders is the one that goes "Don't like (fill in the blank), don't get one." You can put what you like in the blank and repeat for as often as you like until you have completed your list of what you think is important, so it only works as a bumper sloganism if you only have one important thing to say.
This is the part where I am treading on toes. Because whatever is filled in the blank by someone is likely a value that they hold close and feel strongly about. I'm not trying to ruin your day. If this is going to do nothing but ruin your day and have you fuming in your head, maybe stop reading and never come back to this stupid blog. Unless you like that sort of thing. Some people actually do, it seems. But maybe not you. So if it is only going to ruin your day, then there is no point. But if you think having your day ruined is worth it if it makes you think harder or defend your position better, well, then I don't want to promise too much, but maybe you should still read this. I might be a moron and this might not benefit you. Still, I seem to think I've got something important to say.
Anyway, right now what I am going to say about the slogan holds true for a lot of the blanks you could fill in, so try and take your cherished belief out of the slogan and look just at the slogan itself and the logic (or lack of it??) behind it.
I think it might be fair to say the philosophy behind it is that you should live and let live. You do your thing, I'll do mine, and you, well, you mind your own business and let me be, because we each get to choos and you shouldn't try and regulate me or interfere in my business... right?
And on the surface that looks pretty good, particularly if you are talking about things like eating sushi or colouring with blue crayons. "Don't like sushi? Don't eat it." "Don't like blue crayons? Don't use em." The problem is that what gets shoved into that blank is not some bland personal preference. It is some kind of issue.
Let me illustrate why this slogan is unfair and ... demeaning? to the issue.
Here is my list: (no, I don't really mean this)
"Don't like litter? Don't throw it.
Don't like puppy mills? Don't run one.
Don't like second hand smoke? Don't go to bars.
Don't like slavery? Don't buy a slave."
There is a heck of a difference between a puppy mill and a choice of sushi, right? Let me lay it out clearly. Most of the things that people disagree and debate about not just about strong feelings. I might have strong feelings about sushi, but I would never try and enforce you either eating or not eating it. It is totally up to you and your choice. So let's not do each other the diservice of pretending that these things are just about strong feelings. There are strong feelings, yes, but there is more to it than that. There are at least two other components to these issues.
Number one, these issues are sometimes issues where we feel justice is involved. What I mean here is that we feel there is an innocent group that needs protecting. It may be puppies, it may be slaves and I'm sure you can think about some other fill in the blanks that apply here. You may disagree heartily with the person on whether or not there is an innocent party, but don't dismiss the person who does. If you are going to say something about the issue, don't you think you should give it the respect it deserves? Don't sloganize it. If you are going to say something, take the time to engage the person who disagrees with a logical and reasoned argument about why you think justice is on your side. It takes time and thought I know. As someone once said (oh the irony! I'm sloganizing!) "Anything worth doing is worth doing well." Otherwise you are just annoying us slogan haters.
And the second possible component, the issue is one that actually DOES affect everyone. Because we all live together here. Believe me, I have sometimes wished I could go off and Swiss Family Robinson it so that no cats would poop in my flower bed and I could blare Vivaldi all the way down the street if I wanted to. Then again, it could get lonely in my cat-free Vivaldi paradise. Like it or not, barring three hour cruises in the tropics, civilization and society are here to stay. We are part of it. And what we do has a tendency to affect other people. Sometimes the effects are a subtle ripple, but let's not pretend that if we throw trash, it will never blow into someone else's yard. And that is why people sometimes just can't say "Live and let live. It is only your business." They are not out to be party poopers. They just actually care about the world they live in. Don't trivialize it. It is a good thing. As I already said in point one, if you are going to discuss it, then give a REAL reason for them to change their minds.
For the record, I don't claim to be perfect here. It is possible that you might scroll through my facebook and find an annoying, trivializing sloganism. I don't have a handle on this difficult place we call disagreeing and discussing and debating with kindness and understanding. I'm still learning.
So let me end by saying:
"Don't like sloganisms? Don't post em!"
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