Some Days i Wonder

If you have been hiding under a rock the past couple of days.  The news has been full of reports,  dissections and opinions on the horrifying events in Connecticut.

I am not entering my opinion on gun control,  school guards or anything of the such.  It is a topic for another time.    What disturbs me the most of the media content and the pundits that are currently using this as a stepping stone for their own agenda.

Before there was a chance for the families to bury their little ones.   Before a community had a chance to mourn for the lost of souls.   The pundits descended on the area,  and the soapboxes were brought out to promote their own agendas.

Everytime that someone opened up their mouth,  money poured into their own pockets.   Advertisers were paid for the added product endorsements for cologne,   foodstuffs,  deodorant etc.   And everytime the soapbox was built to another height,  it was built on the backs of families that their lives had just changed in a sudden,  horrific act of violence.

How many of these pundits looked at the idea of just donating the proceeds they would do during that time to the support that the families would need.  Did it cross their minds to do something more than their sympathies

Forgiving Behaviors Of The Blind

noun

1. The way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward others:
   "Good behavior"
   Synonyms: conduct · deportment · bearing · actions · doings · manners ·
   

   More
2. The way in which an animal or person acts in response to a particular situation or stimulus:
   "The feeding behavior of predators"

 (Courtesy Oxford Dictionary)

[Here's to us -  Halestorm]

A friend of mine asked me why we keep on walking into people who mistreat us or abandon us. This was the answer I gave it's probably what we are thinking we are finding in other people. We see something special in someone so we cover up the facts of the rest of them. We excuse behaviors as being 'okay' cause there is that special something we see in them. We understand behaviors because we see something 'special' in them. Until they prove that the special wasn't there or was a lot less than what we thought. And yet we still excuse behaviors.

Our friends and family,  others who aren't blinded tell us that things don't add up. They see without the covered glasses of 'hope' So the stories of absence and abandonment, we excuse as being 'okay' should not in fact be okay with you.   They see them as less romantic and more practical.

It becomes okay to be blinded by these glasses of hope.   Finding yourself having a crush on someone who doesn't return the same for you.   So you just hope that they will change their mind and see the same special part that you see in them.   Saying the 'right' words and doing the things they wish that they had.  Sometimes those thoughts are even played on for their own reasons.  

Even then the blinded hope glasses distort what is really there.  That friendship might just be that,  friendship.  It can even be viewed as less if the friendship matrix becomes distorted.  Friendship requires balance by its own nature.  If you are slotted into the position of 'disaster coordinator or even savior at the time of need.   The balance falls apart when you never hear anything else but when that slot in their life is in need.  

I have spent a lifetime being a battery charger for some.  Need a hug,  run to me.  Need a kind word,  run to me.  Need 20 bucks,  that slot is filled.  That was the slot that I fulfilled for some in my life.  Attempt to break out of that mold and the condemnation of  'changing' or 'not understanding' came raining down.

But not all the fault can be placed on the person who is out of balance.  Believing that you set the bar for how high or low someone should be to ride the friendship ride becomes a self fulfilling need.  Discovering that if you strip to bare the basics of a friend are you accepting less than what is needed in your life. 

I talk and like to be talked to.   Someone holding a conversation with me is important to just my social belief as well as my ability to be a friend.   There are those that view me as the walking dictionary to their dreams.  This becomes difficult to hold because there are times when I need to be shown what to do in my life.   I am not perfect,  just forgiven.

It becomes a circular curse to accept second best in my life.   To lower that bar of acceptance due to being lonely.  It removes my ability to function at my fullest because I have to dumb down a friendship so that it doesn't appear I have anything but failed hope.

Hope becomes important in a friendship, especially in a first meeting.  We all hope that when we meet and talk to someone that they can be added to our friends.  Even the most reclusive of people want to add someone to our talking and speaking circle. 


When your single you also hope that the friendship can develop into something stronger and better.  Even after giving up on a future with someone there lives a little bit of hope that the next person might be someone who can see what they like in you.  Wanting to discover more that lives behind the walls of the castle that has been expertly set up.

The question is always how to exercise the out of balance relationships in your life.   What strength does it require to stand up and say enough is enough?   Change or fall to the wayside because my mental and emotional health is more important than your need to fill a slot in your life. 

I have walked away from friendships and even love simply because I lost my ability to see blindly the hope that was never going to be fulfilled in them.  People that I had pledged my life blindly,  finding out they never deserved that level of permission to walk in my life. 

Love,  crushes,  hurt feelings,  abandonment,  internal emotional wars and devastation will always exist in the heart of a hope filled person.  

If you feel condemned by this,  measure yourself and see if your tall enough to ride the ride.

Dragonbear.

Bring Out the Paintbrushes

Anytime someone steps up to a blog,  a journal or even just a discussion they take the chance that someone will not like what they have to say and will leave them.   It's happened before,  and it will probably happen again.  But there is always risk when it comes to revelation.

At times I tire to hear when someone says 'everyone' has hurt me.  I have been on the side of pain.  Of hurt and abandonment and even whispered those words in that time of pain.  Everyone hates me,  no one loves me etc.

But there does come a time that you have to stand and say not everyone hurts me,  that person hurt me.  That person chose to cause me pain and they are different than the hope that everyone else has in their lives to not.   The majority might have hurt someone,  but that by no means is everyone.

This especially bothers me when it comes to hearing the words 'all men have hurt me'.   I am a red blooded American male.  Last time I checked, I have the equipment and the genes qualify as a male.   In many cases I hear this from friends or the casual friends and say to them 'really?  All men have hurt you?.   'So how do you see me in your life?'  

When someone says 'every male' they are lumping me into a group of pain causers in their life.   This can become difficult to understand because where I have done wrong things,  I actively try not to cause someone pain.  Especially if it's someone that I consider a friend. 

This leaves only three options when it comes to life. 

1)  I have caused pain to this person and have no realization that I did it. 

2)  They have a grief with me, but have yet to present it to me to resolve or at least for me to understand.

3)  They no longer see me as a male but as something different.

The third one is the most troublesome.  Not because it is important for everyone to see me as a male.  But simply because it excuses so much to be said and done by not allowing me to be seen as a man.   I have male tendencies,  male equipment and even a pseudo man card in my pocket.  Where I may not act like the stereotypical male,  I still qualify just by the chromosomes that developed in my DNA.

So how to you present this fact to someone,  especially someone you care about that doesn't realize every time they say 'all men have hurt me' it becomes a direct slap in my face.    Some would probably say 'nope,  not you of course'.. But then that disqualifies the idea that 'every male' has hurt me.  If I am a male (which again, I state as evidenced fact), then shouldn't the expectation to be said as 'everyone but you have hurt me'. 

But then this opens up another avenue.  If there is one that hasn't hurt you,  then what are the odds that there is another that hasn't hurt you?   There are an estimated 3.4 billion men in the world.   So out of that 3.4 billion men either they have all hurt you (which means you have had a really sucky life) or the majority of men you have met have hurt you. 

So why is it important to remove 'everyone' in the vocabulary and be more specific?  Because if you speak out of pain it is a guarantee you will hurt those that care more than you realize.   Again, purely from what has occurred in my life I have fallen into this same trap.   Everyone has hurt me built a wall to say that everyone would hurt me.   But I looked at those that have been in my life and not hurt me and said no more.

On a more personal note,  when someone says 'everyone' and I am included in everyone, then there should be a specific reason that I have hurt you.   Have I neglected something that I should have done?   Has there been a misunderstanding that I did not see?  Have I been callous in my thoughts and deeds with no reasoning?   Or is this simply you no longer see me as a male, but only as 'Joey'. 

Words are powerful. Words are what brought ideas and thoughts into our world.   Words are also what brings pain and anger to those that care the most.  Romantic,  friendship or just generally being a human being.   And everyone is one of those words that mean a lot more than we give credit to.


Love me... Hate me.. Just never lump me as being 'Everyone'.  I am me.  Always have been and always will be.  

Dragonbear

Language: Course for Human Suffering

In all things there is a caveat to things I have to say.  One of them is that I do not have perfect grammar.  Also in no way would I classify myself as a 'grammar Nazi'.   Though I said in the past year or so some of the most special people in my life have rubbed their grammatical expertise on me.

The idea of words and grammar has also become important to me specifically in the past two years now since I am a technical 'professional' writer.   This mostly means I get paid some sort of pittance for my typing on a keyboard a few moments a week.

What does bug me at times is the idea that words can become frivolous in their usage.  Grammar aside (just ask about the legendary discussion with my brother about the usage of 'irregardless'.) the biggest threat to our culture and being human is the ability for people to be responsible for the words they say.  Somewhere both in real life and on the internet people have forgotten that they can get punched in the mouth very quickly.

Of course I would never punch a friend unless it was really useful or really funny.   Ask my friends and hopefully they will see me as a lover and not a fighter.  I would say ask my enemies, but usually they are hiding under rocks and trees looking to escape from their own fantasy world of importance.   

Having spent almost 20 years (yes gang,  almost 20 years in its different versions) very little phases or surprise me.  The cons that people unfortunately fall for being the same cons that were done in paper form and on rudimentary internet pages before home computers became affordable.  I was tinkering around on dial up bbs's in the middle 80's (don't tell my mom and please never let her watch the movie Wargames again).   Anonymous punks just as long as someone's opinion were put on the screen for others to read.  

What tends to bother me the most is when people that I actually know will say painful and hurtful things to others.  This isn't a matter of disagreement,  but just simply screaming and cursing someone simply to fulfill an argument.   That is the sad thing about communication.  People can communicate pain much easier than they can communicate ideas to others.   There is always a certain amount of anger and pain towards someone we know.  It may be buried away somewhere inside of us,  but everyone has disappointed someone else at some point.   Far too many people use that as a weapon when they are angry or frustrated at another.

I play World of Warcraft almost daily.  It is what I get paid to play and to learn and teach.   Tonight and this weekend, Blizzard announced that they are going to be delaying the next expansion til late in the fall.   This ended up being another 6 months of the same content.  For some reason this sparked a very aggressive stance on many things shared.  There are open communication channels inside the game that allow people to speak across 'zones' to other players in those zones.  Usually they are used to answer questions and obtain information.  Sometimes they are used to harass others or cause anger from others.  The term 'Troll' has been used to describe these for many years of group gaming.  This goes beyond instigating for humor or entertainment but simply anger being brushed out in words.

Never say that I haven't made my share of people angry in my life.  Just ask some of my ex girlfriends just how frustrating, I can be.   Easier to find my friends who will tell you that I can be frustrating.  But words carry so much weight with them that they become less of a scapel and more of a club.  Words such as hate and love carrying just as much power behind them when they are swung around.

I am no philosopher.   Or as was said in the movie History of the World Part 1 a 'stand up philosopher'.  Just being a human being on the same road that everyone else walks with a mental pad and paper in my hand watching as people join me and leave me.

The battle with all things is to watch what I do first.  When was the last time I hurt someone with my words out of anger.  When was the last time that I shared something that helped someone else.  A kind word or to help them believe that they are human as well.  Did I add anything to the tapestry of life today?   Did I unravel some of the strings and start to lose someone in my life again.   Perhaps even worse is when I stay silent and involved in my own version of the Bat cave.  Surrounded by memories and walls that others do not dare to try to climb.

My mother taught me for many years to clean up your own house before looking to clean others.   Coming from a person that rarely a harsh word out of anger was spread for others to hear I can see her point.  It becomes easy to point out the faults and the pain others cause without seeing the horror show we can bring to others.  A friendly verbal smack on the back of the head becomes a dangerous abuse at the wrong time.   Never to be forgotten when that person is down and needs a hug.  We never truly know how someone might feel in their life that some point.  

So to clean up my life first I look at my speech patterns.   Do I show love to the children I see on Sunday even in my gruff manner?  Do my friends know I love them and care about them.  Does my family see it when they need me?   Or do they see the wall again to not anger the Dragon unless you want to see the full blunt of imagined hatred for them.  

That is always the question answer in everything both I and others do.  What do people see in speech patterns in both the good and the bad days.  Do they ask the questions or just assume that they are next on the firing line to be massacred by a verbal tirade?

Always questions to answer in the future weeks.

Joseph Douglas