Book of Mirrors

The usual disclaimers apply to all the following entries. These are my perceptions, my thoughts, my "reality", if you will. These things may or may not have any resemblance to Actual Reality. (Neither, I might point out, mightn't your perceptions, thoughts, and "reality".) Also note that this is Mercury Retrograde, probably the worst time to write something like this. I happened to be born under a Mercury Retrograde period, which means I (supposedly) communicate just-fine-thank-you-very-much during subsequent retrogrades. It does mean you might receive it as something other than it was intended. If you have a problem with this, or today's subsequent posts, I suggest you read it more than once, with at least one time being after Monday.

( Probably Going to be Long, and Likely Going to be Histrionic )

Well, that doesn't QUITE cover it, but I think that's what I equate it with, when it all comes down to it.

For anyone who's wondering, this is gonna be the post that I alluded to in my earlier post about The Dreaming, and in my response to jupitercornwall in his LJ quiz thing. And many thanks to ngtflyer and blckwngdorcl for doing the geek thing by themselves and letting me come home to make this post, while I was still, at least mostly, in the right frame of mind. :)

( Cut for the easily annoyed (length) )

Well, well, well.

It seems I've opened up a lovely little can of worms.

There also seems to be some sort of debate going on as to my motives for making the post I did about simplysakka and wyzard_vyrnahnn. Most of them assume malice on my part, it seems. Others seem to assume, at the very least, thoughtlessness. The latter is the closest to the truth, although not with the same connotation that the word usually implies.

Let me explain something to the world at large. I'll call it my hierarchy of communication. There are many ways in which humans can communicate with each other. With so many being available, it seems only natural that people will discover they have a preference for one over the other. It's the same with me, almost to a fault. I get tunnel vision, basically. My methods of communication are, from most to least favorite: in person, chat utility, Live Journal, email (with egroups just about a tie for this one), telephone, and snail mail. If I have access to a person on one of my more favored modes of communication, I focus on it, pretty much to the exclusion of all other methods. If I know you have a chat utility, and I want to ask you a question, I'll wait weeks to see you online before I'll deign to pick up a phone. In fact, it usually won't even occur to me to call. Not saying it's right or wrong, better or worse, just the way I communicate.

In reference to my post that seems to be causing such controversy, simplysakka wasn't available for the first two means of communication, so I went to the third. wyzard_vyrnahnn was, and, as far as I know, I pretty much told him in person everything I said in that entry. It was simply a matter of who I could get in touch with, how. Because of my tunnel vision on methods of communication, since LiveJournal was available as a medium of communication, email just didn't enter my mind. It just didn't.

I debated responding to one of simplysakka's entries on her LiveJournal. But nothing I said, as far as I could tell, would have been good as a response to anything she said. It was pretty much a stand-alone post. Granted, doing so would have given her the privacy of discussion that seems to be a rather heated issue right now, but since I wasn't thinking about her journal being friends only nowadays, the privacy issue just didn't cross my mind.

So, I made the post in my own journal. I knew it was a volatile post. I did, in fact, consider making it filtered. But, I have never, and intend to never, make a filtered post. In the end, this is the integrity that won out. Some would argue that this was no integrity at all, but I only speak to myself for my own integrity. I did, out of courtesy, put it behind a cut-tag. A pretty useless gesture, it seems, but a gesture nonetheless.

The entry itself seems to have sparked all sorts of responses, from varying people, in various methods of communication. All told, the "you're an evil bitch" and the "I'm proud of you" votes are pretty equal. Not that I care. It wasn't my intention to stir up a fan club, nor to put myself on anyone's hate list. People's reactions are their own to have, and I don't responsibility for other people's reactions. My emotional responses to the reactions have pretty much run the gamut, but overall, it's certainly been one of the more interesting debates in my LJ.

I knew some people wouldn't like what I wrote. It was harsh stuff. And, perhaps it came out more harshly due to the fact that these were thoughts I'd not been expressing for entirely too long. I take responsibility for that, and I apologize for holding my tongue for too long. I'll try not to let that happen again. But, as logomancer was when he wrote his controversial comment to blckwngdorcl several months ago, I was also willing to be the designated bad guy. Anyone who reads my LJ has the right to their own opinions and reactions to what I say. I know I put myself on the line when I wrote that. I was, and am, willing to take the consequences of that. If it caused, or causes, anyone to think, and perhaps grow, then I'll be happy. If it doesn't, well, that was a chance I took, too.

I'm not sure what gave anyone the idea I would delete, filter, or otherwise make the post unavailable to anyone else. I am not acid0philus. I am not simplysakka. That may be how they would handle the situation, but it's not the way I handle such situations. It's not how I intend to handle this one. I, perhaps, could have made a better choice. My tunnel vision with communicative modes prevented me from seeing that at the time. I already apologized for it, both in person to simplysakka, and as a comment to a post she made in her LiveJournal directly concerning the issue. I don't intend to apologize anymore. I've said my piece.

blckwngdorcl and I were talking about this issue recently, and something he said reminded me of a post I'd made that I'd completely forgotten. My first LiveJournal post, in fact. It is relevent to the situation. Click here if you care to read it.

This is really all I have to say on the matter. I may or may not respond to further comments, as my mood and availability allow.