This was posted on Tishies Board .... Bijou posted part of it at http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?site=3&id=6340&page=2
I thought the whole article should be posted here and on H20 as a new topic.
June 3 2001 at 8:47 AM
I know it wasn't too long ago when you first came to the board to post (although you'd been lurking for quite a long time, right?). I do remember you taking huge exception to someone's response to you, a response that seemed to me to be quite supportive and sympathetic.
So here's what I'm wondering. Was your anger justified? To you, of course it was. To me, it may have looked like you
frying some poor poster's ass because you didn't care for or misunderstood her response. You were looking for support, and so understandably, you were not all that interested in being supportive.
Or, how about this? You post for a while, and then some ignorant comment just pushes you around the bend and you reply scathingly. The person then tells you, "I've seen you reply intelligently before, Seachn'. You must be all hormonal because you're pregnant, so you aren't responding rationally now."
Where does your ire fit into this discussion? If it pisses you off to be dismissed in that way, does anger have no place in your reply?
Face-to-face we may choose to ignore stupidity, as we do here. Is that "supportive?" The stupid person you're ignoring may cry and pout that no one is responding and bemoan the sorry lack of support here. Are you then beholden to every idiot that chooses to post so that he can feel supported?
If someone comes here in pain, I've never (and I'm not 'generalizing to exaggerate my point') seen them flamed by the
board regulars.
I can't speak for Annie ... oh, hell, I do it all the time, who am I kidding? Annie goes to another board because this one has increasingly become a Silly Place, and I don't mean like Camelot. It's silly in that the conversation is vapid and pointless. People who used to have provocative (provoking thought along with irritation) ideas go elsewhere to express them. Real things do occasionally get discussed, only to be followed up by pouting and flouncing and announcements of "you'll never see me again!" Of course, we do see them again, because they don't find a better place to play.
Actually, the owner of this house has been very indulgent for many years. She has allowed anyone who passes by to
come and sit in her living room. Some of us have sat there and drank beer and whined for four years now, and she just vacuums around us. I would never have been so kind, nor so patient. I could deal with cleaning up around everyone, but when someone starts bitching about the way I decorate my bathroom, it would be time to send everyone home.
Actually, Tishie has gone to great pains to set up a wing in her life just for us. Someone comes in, takes a stinky dump on the carpet, and she says, "Okay, NO stinky dumps on my carpet! Does everyone understand that?" Then someone says, "Hey, JWs used to tell us we couldn't take stinky dumps on the carpet -- you're just like them!" Then Tishie has to go consider this. She says, "Is it fair for me to make a rule against shitting on the carpet? It really bothers the other guests, but I hate to be restrictive!" She spends an inordinate amount of serious thought on being fair to herself and the other guests.
So then, someone says, "Everyone was really harsh when that guy took a stinky dump on the carpet! Maybe he had diarrhea and couldn't help it! This is an angry place! Tishie, you should not allow people to be angry about the shit on the carpet! You need to put a sign on your door that says "People In Here Are Big Meany-Pants, So Don't Come In If Your Tummy Hurts, 'Cuz You'll Get No Immodium From Them!!""
Then, there's the small group who is trying to help someone through a problem. They're sitting closely together on folding chairs over by the philodendron. But, of course, there's a guest who runs over to them, puts his head in the center of the circle and says, "Can I feel your tits???" He's like a pinball -- bouncing here and there being inappropriate like Helen Keller at the dinner table.
Let's not forget the guy who walks up to a conversation, inserts himself bodily into the group and screams epithets the person wearing a purple shirt. Each and every conversational group with a purple-shirted guest will be screamed at by a bulging-veined cretin. He alternately bellows incomprehensible insults and begs to leave. When Tishie shows him where the door is, he pretends to leave, but sneaks back in with a hat on so no one will recognize him. Somehow, despite the disruptions, Tishie manages to hold a productive and popular dinner party for something like four years. Of literally hundreds of guests who flow in and out of her doors, she has asked only three to never return. One spewed a stream of feces and vomitus so voluminous that there was no physical room for anyone to stand. The other two picked it up and rubbed it on the other guests.
I think it's completely valid to want a safe little room where fragile folk can peacefully co-exist and give each other flowers. I know that sounds insincere, but I do mean it. And, I think it's completely valid to want a room where any Joe and his dog can walk in off the street and have his say. But, isn't it really clear that those two places cannot be the same room? And, isn't it equally obvious that the homeowner cannot make it so? You could easily create a small room with clear house rules. "NO ANGER HERE." And, you could justifiably enforce those rules -- it IS your house. But, if someone came in who was hurting and angry, they would of necessity be unwelcome. Can you see how impossible it would be to fill everyone's needs in the same place? And yet, Tishie has succeeded remarkably for years, while accepting more criticism than seems humanly possible.
Now, the disclaimer: While your post did prompt my reply, I did not intend to single you out. It's sort of a culmination of my own four beer-drinking years here.
Roxi
http://network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=55236&messageid=991579643
JanG
CAIC Website: http://caic.org.au/zjws.htm
Personal Webpage: http://uq.net.au/~zzjgroen/