Looking in the broken mirror

There’s a certain freedom in the anonynimity of the Internet. Sometimes it’s hard to know how to navigate that freedom. It’s a useful exercise. Ask a person, if they could commit a crime in which they were guaranteed never to be caught what crime would they commit? Would there be some sliding scale in terms of depravity? I know what my answer would be. That there would be one person who would know that a crime had been committed. That person couldn’t live with himself.

I’ve been at this game a while now. This is my fourth blog in four years. It can definitely be carthetic to allow your rants into the public domain. Most of the time there are far worse methods of dealing with the struggles and strains that life throws at us. Typing text into a page where in reality only a few dozen strangers scattered across the globe will end up reading it is “mostly harmless” with one exception. It’s something the inestimable Stephen Fry touched upon. Any medium, or any form where a person expresses their opinion becomes a vehicle for self-indulgence, self-gratification and narcissism of the highest order. My opinion matters. My feelings matter. My hurts matter. They do matter. But the danger is that we we acquire delusions of adequacy. My feelings matter more. My unreasonable expectations matter more. And as Mr. Fry points out in his podcast above he is guilty of the same as is this black pot building itself up into a right little huff in front of you over that self-righteous kettle.

I suppose I should start by getting it out of the way where I definitely screwed up. I flirted too much. I made too many comments about sexual acts in a manner designed to provoke a reaction. And in some instances I engaged in cyber sex. It’s funny how an activity on the one hand can be so addictive and on the other hand, when described to a stranger made to sound so stupid. Take football for instance. The most popular sport in the world bar none. Yet if Marvin the Martian arrived tomorrow and you tried to explain the sport to him you may have a tough time relating how so much money revolves around the abilities of twenty two men to guide a spherical object in a skilled manner. It’s something I often wonder about. Pornography or cyber sex or even voyeurism. Isn’t it on one level an incredibly absurd activity? Yet even the simple sentences at the start of this paragraph fail to convey the intense way doing something like that can affect the people involved.

Then there’s the areas where I was unwise or naieve. I think that in heterosexual opposite sex friendships if you ignore the attraction factor you’re an idiot. It either gets discussed and dealt with or it gets ignored, and festers. It can eventually become a non-issue but only after many years. I’ve got a soft heart. I love too soon and too easily. I want to help. I want to make things better. I like to see people smile and to see people happy. Fulfilling the second most important commandment and all that. If you’ll excuse the arrogance I wonder if God’s like that. Loving more than he should. One virtue doesn’t make up for vices though. Widsome and discernment need to be exercised in the Christan walk.

Blogging has become part of what I do; how I live my life. It’s impossible not to do it any more really. It’s how I, to use that annoying term from the American vernacular, process things. It’s how I sort them out in my head. But the problem arises when it concerns other people. There’s an altogether massive illusion with regard to how what we blog can be seen. There’s issues associated with the generation gap and the digital divide. A person reading from another continent may find the nicknames you use for the people at work endearing or amusing but a second degree of separation acquaintance who happens to stumble across your blog will more often than not put two and two together. What you intended to communicate; what you actually communicated; what a person actually understood and how they interpreted might as well be electrons buzzing around your own self important nucleus.

We fool ourselves into thinking that we can blog without consequence. I try to not blog about a person without having talked to them about the issues that I’m blogging on. It’s not easily done though. We live in the Web 2.0 world. It’s all about broadcast and sometimes we just have to shut out the noise. The observer effect is easily forgotten. In politics or the world of celebrity there are often rumours about a new appointment. Person X is in line for the vacant job. In politics at least, the people who don’t know talk. The people who do know don’t. It’s an easy trap to fall into. It’s easy to do. To vent and rant but it very rarely solves the issue. In fact with me, venting and ranting just emphasises why the issue exists in the first place.

It’s socially acceptable to talk about a woman’s instinct. I’m not sure what the male equivalent is but there are times I’ve ignored my gut feeling on an issue. And every time it’s come back to bite me in the ass. This year is only nine days old and it’s already seen important people leave my life. I find it ironic that I’m having done unto me what I’m doing unto others, in a manner of speaking; I’m not sure it’s what Jesus intended but it’s an interesting perspective. You don’t really have a choice in what happens to you in life. Sometimes it just does. You do get to choose how you react to it. I hope that I can swallow my own feelings and emotions as they bubble and act in love. Another family left my fellowship a while back. One member asked for prayer for blessing before he left. I was one of the people who prayed with him. I know it hurts. I know what I want to do and to scream and shout but thus far I’ve been successful in giving that to God and acting the way I feel a follower of Christ should when confronted with hurt.

My fellowship recently had a family leave us. Over 29 years of relationship and now it’s no more. It sucks. It hurts. That’s life. Some people said that what was going on was covenant breaking and that it was sin. I’m not sure if I agree with that. I haven’t read enough to come to a firm opinion on it. The discussion itself tended towards acrimony at points. I prefer to remember the positives from life and draw out all that was good from a relationship. I know a man who spent three weeks being fed only on bread and water by his own parents because of his faith is praying for me every day. I know he is because he said he would. I don’t know if/when I’ll see them again. But I know there’s love there. And that’s why it hurts so much.

I sometimes wonder what my character flaws are. The ones nobody tells me about. I know what buttons a person can push to get me angry but I’m not going to leave a step by step list here :-) I guess I find myself worrying that I’m too forgiving at times. Maybe I should get more angry. Maybe I should get more upset. Maybe that’s all bollox and I should continue as I am. I don’t know. But I’ll probably blog some more about it