TMI

Social media exists for sharing, but too often we are tempted to over share. Last week, I got myself in a lot of trouble on Facebook (again) by forgetting to behave as if the person with whom I disagree is in the room with me, by acting as if they were an automated troll rather than a real person. I see careless arguments break out through social media all the time, ones that can seriously damage relationships and negatively influence public opinion on sensitive issues.

source by Teeney 2

Don't be an internet troll.

Maybe we're automatically more caustic toward each other on facebook and blogs because they exist in part to make us look good. We carefully construct our public identity through these forums and when someone responds unfavorably to them, our immediate response is to lash out. We want so badly to be perceived as confident, respectable individuals with numerous interests and talents that we will compromise relationship to keep our online personas intact.


Blogs in particular seem to tempt us to over share, to vent our frustrations as if we're writing in a private journal when we're really allowing the world to access every gut response and judgment. I try to be very careful here to create a distance between my life as it happens and how I express it. A friend and I agreed recently that the best way to avoid bitter and angry comments is to not invite them in the first place - to share thoughtfully and non-defensively, to explain your actions and address possible criticism maturely, and to realize that some life decisions and topics will invite comments no matter how you address them in your writing and that it is your responsibility to create a space for constructive criticism.


Although it is our right to spew whatever crap we want into the virtual universe, it's not always in anyone's best interest to do so. Don't pretend like you are justified to speak and act irresponsibly. Stop behaving as if your opinion is the only one that counts. Recognize that you are initiating a conversation every time you post. And if you use writing as a tool to help you sort out your emotions and make solid decisions, consider closing your lap top and settling down with a pen and paper instead. Good, old fashioned private journaling never hurt anyone.

"about me"

Wife.

Christian.

Framer.

Nanny.

Goldfish owner.

Crafter.

Singer.

Fashion lover.

I recently ran into some stereotype-driven conflict on a blogger's page. After urging others who commented on her post about divorce to realize that marriage is not passive and that you can't gauge your commitment solely on feeling butterflies, someone responded rather bizarrely:

"Leah, it's obvious you have a religious axe to grind, but this is not the place for it..." 

To further clarify, this is what I posted:

"the farse here is feeling that there should always be butterflies. no wonder so many people get divorced. those butterflies are dopamine, which hype you up and stay in your body for about 18 months after you fall in love. they leave after that and you're still left with a relationship to work on. nobody would still be married if they expected prolonged butterflies. plus, that would be very uncomfortable. 

i'm not saying this to outright disapprove of your decision, - . I just felt a need to clear this up. Marriage is hard work. It's not something that happens to you; you actively pursue it or you don't." 

I can only conclude that the respondent either thinks anyone who is pro-marriage is also a fundamentalist Christian or - and this is more likely - she read my little bio on my profile and mentally linked my criticism to it. I can imagine her saying to herself: "oh, isn't that just like an ignorant American Christian to say something anti-divorce on this blog where we're all supposed to be nice and supportive." 

I will concede that my Christian upbringing likely has something to do with my commitment to marriage. But I think it makes just as much sense to say I have been too heavily influenced by those old married couples who think marriage is a life long commitment. Or human society who prizes relational commitment. Or love itself, which demands I give up a little of my own comfort for the comfort of my friends and family. Or maturity, which tells me that life is, in fact, not about me at all, that life is much more worth living when I live in relationship and take responsibility for my behavior.

In conclusion, my "axe to grind" is really just an attempt at waking up my self-obsessed generation to the destructive nature of too much self love. I've heard it said that you have to love yourself before you can love others fully, and maybe that's true. But if you love yourself too much, it's impossible to love anyone else fully. It's impossible to really commit to anything or anyone. When the end goal is to make yourself happy, you will search your whole life and never find it. When the end goal is contentment in a responsible community of people who have striven and nagged and hurt and let go of themselves for your benefit, alongside you, you will probably be surprised one day, waking up to light and birdsong, at how happy you are.

To round out the whole discussion, think about this: next time you read someone's fragmented online bio, try not to see them as a list, but as a nuanced individual. I am not a naive, fundamentalist, Republican housewife (which one may assume from the word, "Christian"). Even if I were, I would be much much more than that. Judge me on my words, not on my particular life situation. Judge me on my heart, my intentions, my sometimes over-the-top passion, not on a single word placed out of context.

from Three Cups of Tea

"Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart.
Never give up, never lose hope.
God says, 'The broken ones are my beloved.'
Crush your heart. Be broken." 
- Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir


"Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water,
sings the pebbles into perfection."
-Rabindranath Tagore, p. 184


"If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls" - Greg Mortenson, p. 209


"'I've heard some people say Americans are bad,' she says softly. 'But we love Americans. They are the most kind people for us. They are the only ones who cared to help us.'" - p. 224


"'I request America to look into our hearts,' Abbas continue, his voice straining with emotion, 'and see that the great majority of us are not terrorists, but good and simple people. Our land is stricken with poverty because we are without education. but today, another candle of knowledge has been lit. In the name of Allah the Almighty, may it light our way out of the darkness we find ourselves in.'" - Syed Abbas, p. 257


"There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?" - Rumi

prose

I'm sitting under a roof
of scattered tree limbs,
in a dusty, fenced in patch
of Tallahassee grass
with an abandoned ballet
bar on the left
  miniature, faded yellow
chairs scattered by
some giant in a brief
   fit of rage
and old gray-white pipe
flies: butter, fruit, red?
I think it's going to rain

-----------------------

Shrill peep of an
  orange beaked
bird (Cardinal!)
   it nest-led
in a low hanging
branch
too close to childrens'
curious fingers
guarding, not ten
    feet away

-----------------------

sugar ants flock to ice cream
  like little girls flocks to
low
    hanging
         branches.

time and season

Your limbs half bare
in May
in Florida
Resisting summer
or too lazy, or
dying?

Your limbs grew wild
outstretched and crooked
in those early
days before you
really
   knew
you were alive

Do you regret
  the growing over
time and season?

Do you regret bearing
children on your arms
and standing still
when storms, surely
  hundreds now,
washed over you?

Perhaps it's too
much, and too
hard
to grow back,
          bring back,
all that you lost
  again,
    and over ag-
ain.

ugh

People need to stop being so flippant about divorce. the reason why your grandparents are still together is because they stayed together during times they didn't particularly want to be together. wake up, people. if you stop feeling the love, find a way to feel it again, or let time pass and rekindle it later. don't just make up some stupid excuse about knowing that you just weren't right for eachother or growing apart. Marriage is work. Duh. To maintain a close relationship with anyone for a long time is work. Your life may be crap, but you can't blame it on your spouse, cut ties, and omg, just start again with, like, a whole great life ahead of you. When you get a divorce, I imagine it's not really that easy to just pick things up and start over. Stop deluding yourself, world.

the middle

"I have heard that many of us sojourn in the middle for a long, long time; that we have many middles; that we keep meeting and making new middles. Maybe every ten years, like Ruth's mother said. Maybe, for some people, more often than that.

And I have heard that some people eventually leave the middle and arrive at an end. I have heard that this end is a place of wisdom, of beatitude. I have heard it is a place of unself-consciousness. I have heard there is a lot of give in the fabric there." - Lauren Winner, Still