What's with the recent spate of folks saying goodbye, or giving swansongs?
This is a webboard. People come and people go. People take breaks and people dip in and out. People reduce their posting, and sometimes they pick it up some. People do what people do.
No excuses are required, no permission, no pride needs satisfying, nor humble pie eaten on a return. It's just a webboard.
Do we apologise and bid farewell on Google when we take a break from the whole Internet, sending an email to "All Users" in our address books, or do we create a fanfare and ask for a pin to mark the spot on Google-Earth, when we return? This is just a small corner of the Web.
The Web has been around for years, with people coming and going. For many it's like their right arm, in the modern age. The chances are that they aren't going to give it up. Even when one small corner no longer holds their interets quite the same, there's a high probability that they will browse it to see what's changed, once in a while
No-one like to say goodbye, and no-one likes to hear it. Then there's the peculiar reaction that exJWs often have to it, like it's final, and like we're losing yet something else. Why put ourselves or others through that? Or is it like underlining point in our lives, like "disassociating", as if everything in our lives needs such an aura of finality? Again, I ask, why should life be like that? It's not like moving home or changing a job - we can access websites from pretty much anywhere on earth.
Personally speaking, I've hung out here quite a while. It took me ages to get to my first 1,000 posts, and the elusive "Jedi" status. Then I seemed to get on a roll and was swept up with the addiction of interaction and soon passed 10,000 posts. Somehow little old me became part of the woodwork, which is both stupifying and scary at the same time. I managed to get one post edited and one thread deleted in all that time. I also managed to tic off Simon at least twice
Often I've felt overwhelmed with what I read here. Regularly I'll take breaks to recover, with one such LOOOONG overdue break extending for about three months, with me just occasionally checking for PMs, etc. At first folks would post asking where I was, but now it just seems to be something that folks have got used to, as I occasionally drop off the face of the earth. Or maybe it's all the fresh newbies. It's hard to keep up with all the posters here. New folks are appearing all the time, and are just as hurt as the rest of us have been. The same needs coming around time and time again. Its true that no-one is indispensible - thank gawd!
It often surprises me to see folks lose their empathy for that. It's like they get to a point of recovery themselves, but then want nothing to do with helping the next generation (in this case often only a couple of years, not 70 - 80 ) of posters. Of course some just aren't made that way, and the best they can hope for is to get themselves in a better place and hope that that is a positive benefit to the world at large. I don't see anything wrong in that. There's no obligation incurred by posting, other than just treating others reasonably (which is the whole of the law posting guidelines).
The strangest thing, to my way of thinking, is hearing about the boardwars, where folks go to another part of PUBLIC cyberspace and moan about previous areas they've occupied. The latest trick seems to be a deplorable habit of posting pictures of folks and their kids in places of the Internet that it's illegal to visit (in most decent-minded States and countries). Whatever happened to a sense of {not-so-]common decency? I guess the gloves can come off when someone dares (gawd-forbid) say something against us in print, either on a webboard or in private? Time to have a field day of slander and mayhem, in some kind of bitter and twisted sense of reprisal? I guess the WTS needs blaming for that, too, huh? Fortunately most folks are "human" (or maybe merely "adult") and the thought doesn't even enter their heads!
So, what are we here for? Is it merely for entertainment? Is it to help out? Is it to find a voice and evolve? Is it to meet up with other "survivors"? Is it to sharpen our teeth on doctrine, policy, argumentation, history, or life in general? Is it to grow and help grow? Is it to make a few friends, and hopefully not too many enemies?
All of these are admirable enough reasons to be here, or in any other forum of interest, and there are no doubt many more. So why say "goodbye" with an air of finality?
In the words of the long-departed Logansrun: Discuss...