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SBR: Self Reflection Space.

20:39 / 09.04.07

This is the thread to work through your shit, ask for peoples opinion on your self-referential conclusions and possibly spawn new SBR topics.

My contribution:
During this whole Epop thing I've realised that it's not just a desire for righteousness that's driving me. I mean, that's there, but it's not all. Tied in with it a)is a desire to be like by my Barbelith peers and b)a sort of bloodlust where I actually just want to rip someone to pieces until they feel bad and I have won.

I'm not saying I should stop contributing, but I think it is something I should keep in mind so that I don't start posting in an unhelpful and selfish way. On the other hand, he's an arse and I'd like to be mean to him.

Secondarily, I wonder what the starting of this thread says about me. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that I need other people verbally express their aproval of my emotions/understandings/choices before I really feel comfortable with them. I think this may tie in to a) my low self confidence and b) my crushing fear of adult responsibility.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

20:47 / 09.04.07

Well, not to diminish your introspection, but you might be taking this a little too much to heart. I mean:

a)is a desire to be like by my Barbelith peers

I'm not sure if that was to be "like my" or "liked by", but either way, well, yeah! These are great, intelligent people who have invested years of time and effort in creating a (reasonably) safe space on the Internet where people can get together and have brilliant conversations. Who wouldn't want to be in some ways akin to/respected and thought highly of by these people?

b)a sort of bloodlust where I actually just want to rip someone to pieces until they feel bad and I have won.

If somebody is peppering their dialogue with phrases like "Chicks. Yeah, chicks." and "If you want to take it to the mat...", "parse this with me", etc. the urge to give them a textual smack upside the head is perfectly natural. Frustrating smugness is often met with frustration.

So don't feel too bad, is all I'm saying.

20:52 / 09.04.07

No worries, I wanted feedback. It was meant to be "liked by", and I see your point. It's a very good point. But I worry that sometimes scoring points might come before fostering interesting discussion.

Of course, the latter would cause the former, but being unpleasant is just a lot easier.

20:53 / 09.04.07

Oh, and I'm not feeling too bad. No worries there. It was just something I had noticed as salivated hungrily over the keyboard.

03:22 / 10.04.07

I did have a sudden flash of fear, today, that I may come off a little too close to Epop's style posting here. Sometimes, anyway. I tend to make a point of using personal examples to illustrate commentary or ideas, but I don't want to write my autohagiography of excellentness large and bright over the whole board.

And I do keep a window of Barbelith open, pretty much whenever I'm working on other stuff, and jump back and forth, so part of that may just be me posting too much, and my lovely and carefully fed ego making my life/experiences some kind of educational default and breaking through as the posts approach max. capacity.

Maybe I'm just a paranoid neurotic.

And, Princess, you were extraordinarily patient most of the time you addressed Epop and the Epop issue, minus points for the 'No GAY monkeys' mishap. But, Cthulu knows I actively tried to misread some of that material just to make it into something more palatable or cohesive.

13:41 / 11.04.07

I tend to want to fight fire with fire, which everyone knows, just leads to bigger fires, and therefore, more destruction. I struggle very hard to keep some balance and temper my fighty response with compassion, but I do lose sight of this perspective when certain buttons are pushed. I do try to come back to centre as soon as I realize imbalance, sometimes it takes me longer to come to my sense than other times.

18:35 / 12.04.07

I don't want to write my autohagiography of excellentness large and bright over the whole board.

Oh, I do, but that's because I'm so fucking awesome.

13:05 / 25.04.07

And grant is, too. Because grant's very good at communicating.

I'm not. And it's not that I'm trying to be actively contrary to everything and everyone under the sun. Maybe it is self-importance, but I'm definitely not seeing things from other peoples' perspectives very well, because it often seems to me when I post something and someone posts in response and it sort of rolls along with me writing these too-lengthy and silly-sounding posts of explication, that there's not really any kind of argument, but just me agreeing with people to different ends.

And then I post things like 'bigger than any one government' without even considering that people are likely to read 'bigger' as 'stronger' or 'more potent' when I'm just talking about grounds covered. That's poor communication, that is.

And then, of course, I get personal about it. I start using personal examples, like that really trumps or adjusts anything. Because in the end personal experience can always be writ off - perhaps reasonably - as an aberration or oddity. And then I get all locked up because I don't get aberration, don't believe in the truth of averages or statistics, and don't understand the concept of unnatural very well at all.

Which leads me to wonder why I post online to people I've never met, aside from the perspectives I do get as responses. I like the perspectives, and the responses, as they really do put new angles on things for me. But I'm beginning to strongly feel that mine aren't doing any good like that for anyone else. Mine are either confusing the issue at hand, or taking up space. And even typing this and posting it's a bit silly and self-important. 'Course, this is the thread for that, or, at least, for self-focusing. And I'm not sure if anyone responded, which side of the frustration would be better to have confirmed, useful or waste of time.

13:23 / 25.04.07

Aww, DD, please don't feel bad. I think it is courageous of you to question and kick-the-tires of various ideologies. I am a terribly sorry if I was a tactless git. I just wanted you to rethink your statement. *hugs?*

Ex

13:37 / 25.04.07

I think personal experience can be very handy.
It's always difficult to communicate online. You never know when you're coincidentally covering ground that the people you're talking to have covered in a slightly different form elsewhere. I hope I haven't been filling in the gaps in what you were saying in a problematic way. A lot of it seemed familiar from feminist stuff I know of, and some of it seemed to ring bells with anti-feminist stuff I've encountered. So I wanted to see if you would find it useful to be hooked up with the former (Butler, Wilchins, maybe Wittig - it's a fantastic and evolving ongoing debate) and try to address the latter also. I think it's been quite interesting.

13:53 / 25.04.07

Hey, DD, as long as you're thoughtful and respectful then kicking the tires is often useful, imo. It helps open things up in all kinds of ways.

Many's the thread where I've leanrt something thanks to the intervention of a layman.

13:54 / 25.04.07

And, you know, kicking the tires isn't all you're good for.

14:00 / 25.04.07

And, you know, kicking the tires isn't all you're good for.

Oh, indeed, DD!
Glad you mentioned that, Boboss.

*

14:03 / 25.04.07

Self-reflections: I want to reassure DD that he's a good person, really. Because a lot of the time when I've accidentally blundered around acting out of structures of power that I didn't see, I've afterwards felt stupid and careless and really wanted reassurance that my experiences are valued, that I'm a good person, that my individual actions are not causing individual harm, that my individual words have the meaning I want them to have. I think I'm seeing that same hurt in DD and, like usual, I want to just fix it and make it okay.

DD, of course, as an individual person, as far as I can tell, you're great. Insightful, caring, experienced, valued. And, you're allowed to say things that don't come across they way you intended, and your experiences are valued, and people shouldn't dismiss your experiences or your words as meaningless because of some aspect of your identity—instead we should understand your experience in the context of your identity. And, you are also living within structures of power, and sometimes it's not our individual existence, rights, actions, words, feelings, or experiences that matter in a particular discussion. Sometimes one has to back away from the personal to address something more encompassing.