Comments from the Peanut Gallery

The main hazard of keeping an online blog is the same hazard as leaving a diary around where anyone can read it -- people are going to read it. Inevitably, some people will be encouraging and supportive and others will feel the need to tear you down. It has never made sense to me why this latter group exists. After all, while my blog is freely available for anyone to read, it equally freely available for anyone not to read. With so many sites on the internet available for our perusal, why waste time on the musings of someone you disagree with, can't relate to or simply don't like?

Today, I received an email from someone who is or was a reader of the blog. I get occasional comments on posts, but I rarely get emails from people, so I took note and have reproduced it here with my responses. The email is in italics, while my remarks are in plain text.

Did you ever stop to consider that you're being a tad bit negative?

I have a blog whose entire purpose is stopping to consider things. So, in short, yes. A common mistake blog readers make is thinking that blog posts reveal the entire life of the writer. In my case, that isn't true. My blog makes my life sound worse than it is by omitting virtually anything positive because it's not a day-to-day diary of everything I do. Rather, it is where I come to process my feelings or deal with things that have happened to me. I (like most people, I suspect) don't often need to process my feelings about positive things or deal with positive things because I can just enjoy them. Finding a way to be okay with negative things is different and, for me, requires more introspection. Thus, the blog and its slant toward the negative.

Don't get me wrong, I think we've all been there and, more than likely, we'll probably go back. Isn't that just the cyclical nature of life? I really liked reading your blog when I was as pissed of as you are. But, now that things are looking a little better for me, the experience is totally different.

I don't really know what to make of this remark. It sounds like the author of it once enjoyed reading my blog but now does not because her life circumstances have changed for the better. I am happy to hear that, but I don't think it minimizes my own need to deal with my life experiences, which are separate and unrelated from hers. If she no longer finds entertainment or solace in my blog, I invite her to look elsewhere instead of continuing to return to my site, where she no longer finds enjoyment.

In your most recent blog you wrote

It's terrible to go through something like this -- where I am trying my hardest but there is nothing I or anyone else can do to hasten the process.

So, it's pretty simple to "know" that you cant "hasten the process." The hard part is accepting this reality?

Is that a question? That's just exactly what I said in my post.

First of all, a lot of our attitude is a reflection of our own personally imposed mental limitations. And you are bonded to all this 'garbage' ... a dad you can't forgive, an old friend you can't forgive, your position in life, etc. Breaking free! It's mental, which makes doing so difficult, but it's like you're not even trying.

I don't consider myself bonded to garbage. There are things that have happened to me in my life, both positive and negative, that are now part of who I am. I can no more break free from the negative things than I can from the positive things.

I also take issue with the assertion that I'm not "trying." What can this assertion be based on? Writing about my experiences, as I mentioned above, is my way of digesting them and trying to view them in a positive light. For example, if I hadn't lost my job, I would never have met some friends I now cherish or traveled to some amazing countries. Maybe those revelations don't always make it into blog posts, but, this is my blog and not CNN. Not every aspect of my life makes it into these pages because, at some point, I actually have to live it.

Secondly, perspective, my friend, will go a long way. Ultimately, others have it a lot worse than you. I'm not saying this is a reason for you to stop trying to better your self. Rather, suck it up. "It" being this shitty (brief) moment in your life.

This is just being condescending. The author has, by her own admission, come out of an unpleasant period in her life and into a more pleasant one. That's terrific, but it seems to have made her unfeeling toward people who are still going through unpleasant periods.

Obviously, any person on the planet can make a comparison to someone else's experience that is better and someone else's experience that is worse. Valentino Achak Deng can look at a Holocaust survivor and say "Auschwitz was worse," but that doesn't mean that being a Lost Boy of Sudan was a fun day at the rodeo. I'm engaging in wild exaggeration here, since my own struggles obviously pale in comparison to those of either Deng or anyone in the Holocaust, but the fact remains that my struggles are meaningful to me and the fact that other people have struggles too doesn't erase that. If you broke your leg and I broke both legs, does that make your leg hurt less?

Like I said at the beginning, the danger of using a public forum to process feelings is that it is public. It's obvious to me that if you stumble across a point of view you find repugnant, you should avoid it, but it's equally obvious to me that not everyone does that.

I have this uncle who is Facebook friends with one of my cousins (his nephew). My uncle complains ceaselessly about my cousin's Facebook status updates, decrying them as "filth." My uncle has several means available to him to avoid these status updates, but he acts like he's Alex in A Clockwork Orange, strapped down with his eyelids forced open as my cousin's Facebook status updates assault his helpless eyeballs. Some people just like to be annoyed and will deliberately seek out people or situations that irritate them because of it. That says more to me about the annoyed person than the annoying person.

Obviously, it bothers me that someone would send me this email or I wouldn't have dedicated a blog post to it. When I got the email, my first thoughts were: "What the fuck did I do to you?" and "Who are you to give me advice?" Those are still basically my thoughts, but like I said, some people just like to be annoyed, so perhaps I provide a useful service.