Community.
It’s about taking care of one another. Or it’s supposed to be.
It isn’t about tearing one another down, it’s about checking in on the ones who matter to you, or the ones in pain.
Yet, we in the modern age seem to have lost sight of this. We spend so much time trying to be right, to prove a point, to have what we want to have happen finally occur, that we fail as human beings. Especially online. My gods, do we ever fail at being human online. We fail to consider the damage our words and actions cause to real world people.
Many people fail to think about the fact that their words on a screen are being read by real people with their own burdens and their own pains. They don’t think about what they are doing when they post private information online (which is bloody illegal you know, it really is).
I reiterate, again, that posting private emails, DMs and PMs violates copyright and decreased expectation of privacy laws. So stop it. Seriously, enough. Eventually, someone is going to get really ticked off at that behavior and sue someone for it. They’d win too. There is case law and precedent already in place to penalize the person sharing the private communications.
We fail as a community to check in with others, with our networks.
We fail, a lot of the time to stand by our friends and acquaintances.
There have been a lot of attacks on innocent people, me included, in the past 8 months or so.
I keep wondering what in the world people are trying to accomplish.
I’ve seen a lot of it lately.
There is so much pain in the writing community right now, and there are many untold stories that haven’t been aired.
Because those who know them, can’t say anything out of fear.
It’s also hard to know what is truth, what is false, and what is a spin on reality that makes things look bad. Many people don’t bother to read critically and think, they go off on tangents that have nothing to do with fact. I just don’t understand how they can do that. I mean, I literally do not understand how someone can speak without researching and reading exhaustively about a topic. It completely boggles my mind. I fact check EVERYTHING before I talk about it… how can people… you know, not??
It really is hard to know the truth online. People can be anything or anyone hidden behind a screen.
Knowing that people maintain a level of mystery about themselves online, and my Asperger’s brain, lets me look at things critically, not emotionally.
It doesn’t help the pain I feel, though. Losing people I would’ve stood by because they couldn’t bother to read and think about something hurt.
They assumed. They didn’t read, they assumed or believed rumor.
I also know how self-serving most humans are.
We really are, it’s just how we’re wired. Any parent with a young child will tell you the same if they’re feeling like being honest.
When we speak, it’s often to pad our words to make ourselves look better in the eye of the beholder. When we post things or share things, there is often an element of self-service to it.
When there is so much hurt in the community, in your community of friends, loved ones, and associates. I hope you will draw in, and talk to the people who matter to you. I hope you will check on those you haven’t heard from lately, to make sure they’re okay.
I hope that everyone takes a breath and thinks about what they are saying before they get into something with someone online. Because it really isn’t worth the potential pain.
This really isn’t even about just one platform or one topic, there have been so many instances of hatred online lately that it’s mindboggling and making me want to stop using social media at all.
I can’t though, because for me, this is as much business as it is pleasure. This is my career, writing, and editing, and I need an internet presence for that.
How do we draw in?
We stop, we breathe. We step away from the computer and we sit with our emotions until we can react less emotionally and more logically.
We ask ourselves if the potential pain of what we want to say is worth inflicting, and hopefully, decide not to do that.
We go and get a snack, water, take a nap.
We call, or message people we care about to make sure they’re okay. I’m so grateful for the people who check on me. They are heroes.
We stand by our friends, and we ask them about something before abandoning them.
We don’t assume.
We take care of our community.
Instead of letting it burn.
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