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Re: please be supportive

Posted by BobWhite on October 18, 2000, at 21:37:21

In reply to Re: please be supportive » CybilDisobedience, posted by Dr. Bob on October 17, 2000, at 0:20:57

After watching this site for a while, I still wonder if this is the kind of place where I will be comfortable participating. This thread seems to raise some doubts in my mind, but its sort of my style to jump in and ask rather than hang back and wonder.

A bit about me - I have visited counselors, (therapists they usually to call them now) off and on since my parents made me go. I thought my parents sent me because they didn’t like the way I was turning out, but that was so long ago it hardly matters.

For the most part, I am prepared to do my time in this world and move on. I am quite unhappy with many of the things I see here in this place and time, which sort of is why I am interested in this thread. I know that I and my many likeminded friends around the world won't change everything to be the way we want it, or even make things much better, but if we ignore our concerns, and ignore the suffering and injustice, things could get much worse for my children and their children. The counselor I have visited most recently and I have this sort of disagreement, but I still go for a few visits every few months because it provides a setting where I can talk about things like alienation and sadness without bringing people down.

Anyway, I’m not sure this board is meant to support people who embrace their feelings of sadness and alienation. I think it is more to support people who want to repress or somehow rid themselves of those feelings. That’s all good, but here’s kind of where I’m at with this counselor. She says I concern myself too much with other people’s affairs. Okay, she doesn’t say it, she just turns conversation around so she can ask if I think maybe I do, or if maybe I think I would feel better if I didn’t.

But me, I think it is better to pay attention to other people’s concerns, even if it leaves me wanting. I was wanting anyway, so what’s the difference. On those locus of control tests, even though I tend to score in the middle of the internal locus side of the scale (72%-80% internal) she says I should have more confidence. If I scored 100% internal, it seems I would be pathologically solipsist. I can’t and don’t want to control the world. I just want to do my part. It often seems to me people who say they are in control of their lives really are going along with a crowd and have very little control of the direction of the crowd. Democracy means giving up some of your own control, plus, things often happen out of the blue, like a piano falls off a winch and crushes passersby on the sidewalk and such crazy stuff.

This is hardly my main issue, but this site is an example. I care if historic figures who had a history of distress would be banned from this discussion. To me, the person who raised that question was being supportive of me, because I know my ideas are unpopular in many circles. If Einstein was not welcome here, maybe I am not either. I hardly can support things I don’t believe in. I thought our great society was about the freedom to support divergent views and to not support things we don’t believe in.

I was shocked at how arbitrarily the moderator chastened the person who asked that question. The moderators reply seemed rude in cold-cock sort of way - It seemed coldly arrogant to the point of abusiveness and certainly un-supportive. And it seems the latest trend is for the moderator to be even more arbitrary, less concerned about who is hurt in his effort to maintain the kind of atmosphere that will make him comfortable.

I might do better to only share the way I felt about the moderator's intervention, but the one reply that said “who cares” really hurt me to the bone. It was like reading “nobody cares about you, Robert Dwayne White.”

Disingenuous friendship really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe all I’m asking for is the same thing I get when I walk into a local Rotary meeting – cold stares and a steady reminder that I am not a member of this social set. I am sort of asking if its okay to chat here every now and then even though I am one of the vast minority of people who believe sadness is a okay emotion, even if last a life time. For me, any other emotion would feel disrespectful of all the suffering and dying and need in our world. From what I have seen, if I talk about that here, I will end up being the root of a long thread that will likely lead to me being chastised if I try to offer further explanation.

So, tell me to go away, that you don’t like me, that you hate me, that I am unredeemable, that people with my values should be locked away so they don’t pollute those who seem to share some idea about what is civility. Tell me that, up front, so maybe I can spare myself being publicly humiliated here by an authority figure with a medical license. The header on this page makes this discussion seem so open, but from what I’ve observed, this is not a place where people with minority view points can find support, or where it is safe to support diverse points of view.


>The idea here is to provide support. Repeated posting for other purposes will also result in being blocked.
>
> Bob


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poster:BobWhite thread:46368
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001012/msgs/46721.html