Gifts (#quotepic)

As I've said before, I love quotes!  I not only collect them but I come up with my own through the inspiration of life.  This is one of mine...

Ass+u+me

I have someone in one of my circles on Google+ who happens to have a very lucrative business selling sex toys.  Today he made a statement on his stream that sort of threw me off balance a bit.  He said, “They say it’s important to know who your customer is, but do I really want to know who my customer is that buys the inflatable butt plug?” 

My reply was, “(name here) you probably already DO know the person who would buy this! Even for those we think we know we never really do down deep to their souls and souls hide lots of secrets we don't tell the world. So as I said, I'm betting you already do know them.” 

I started thinking about their statement, especially in light of how they make their living, and I got more put off with every path my mind traveled.  It struck me as a very ‘Rupert Murdock’ sort of attitude.  ‘I’ll sell them this product and gladly take their money but I wouldn’t associate personally with them knowing that they do business with me.’  A sort of moral judgment per sae but to who’s morality?  It’s a very narrow and unfair view of those who’s patronage they rely and capitalize on.  I’ve been on the internet for about 15 years & I’ve hung out in adult rooms, fetish rooms, as well as general interest rooms and I can tell you that the majority of the people who hang out in the more colorful places are just the same as all the rest of the ‘vanilla’ crowd, they are just a bit more open and expressive of that specific facet of their life.  As long as I’ve been around I’ve talked to a great many people on a great many subjects and I know that those who purchase & use sex toys are not ‘deviants’ or those who are socially questionable.  And for those who are ‘questionable’ they aren’t more or less so if they buy or use them.  They just simply are regardless of that fact.  I’m not saying that there aren’t deviants out there who do use them but just as every oak is a tree but every tree is not an oak, the same goes here.  Deviants may buy sex toys but not everyone who buys them is a deviant.

I suppose what bothered me the most about what he said was that it was a reflection of a way of thought that I find incredibly erroneous and virulent.  It’s a negative painting of a person’s character overall based on a single small facet of the whole of what makes them up.  Example: We had a teacher locally who was an exemplary educator, very well respected and liked by both colleagues and students, but it was found that he wrote erotic poetry under a pseudonym.  He never published anything where his students might find it, never wrote about any illegal sexual content and didn’t do his writing during working hours.  Yet he happened to tell someone who told someone who either had an axe to grind against him, probably jealousy, or was a prude who then ‘turned him in’ and he was fired!  The sentiment being, ‘They didn’t want someone with that kind of mentality teaching their children.’ WTF?!  Teachers are to be eunuchs or asexual now?  First and foremost, no one pays anyone enough money to be able to dictate what an individual does with their life outside the workplace.  Somehow that area is becoming more and more blurred, thus more and more dangerous to our personal freedoms.  I don’t know how the rest went after that but it’s certainly not the only case of its kind.  I’m hoping he sued, got damages and reimbursement for the lunacy he should never have had to endure and moved on to a place where minds weren’t as littered with pompous narrow minded ugliness. 

I’ve often wondered if there was a degree in which we are responsible for how others see or perceive us.  What portion is our responsibility to what is theirs because they are most certainly viewing us through their own filters.  At what point does our liability end and theirs begin?  Or perhaps the better question would be, why the hell aren’t more of us asking ourselves that question or even recognizing that this is a commonly practiced behavior?  My theory is that if we looked more closely at why we do the things we do and to what ends they bring us as well as all others affected we might not engage in more of the less than desired acts that we perpetrate one against the other.  We’ve gone from the adage of ‘think first, act later’ to just act out and not think at all.  Is this were the murder of common sense was committed?  Our thoughts are the same as our actions.  Intellect demands governors on action.  Not to restrain them but to direct them to their most productive end.  There is a need to examine why is it we come to the conclusions we do, see the filters that we see life through clearly so that we understand why we make the conclusions thus take the actions that we do.  I’d like to remind readers here that there is NO single person in this place or in this life that you can trust gives you absolute unerringly accurate information 100% of the time yet we believe, without question, what we tell ourselves…  Hmm, something wrong with that equation is there not? 

What I am entirely certain of is my G+ friend should be very aware that he has likely already been and will continue to be personally painted by the very same brush of misperception that he himself welds far too easily.

"If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot." Italian Proverb

The other day I was perusing the posts from my circles on Google+.  I found one that has weighed heavy on my mind for the last two days, even to the point of waking me up so as to get my thoughts recorded on the subject.  The identity of the one who posted is irrelevant as are those who replied to the post because this is a trending attitude of late in our society as a whole that many of us say we find disturbing yet too few resist the inclination to participate.  These individuals merely reflect that trend and stirred my desire to respond over all.  The post was about how people edit themselves when ‘faced’ with responding to another’s posting.  The gist of the question was; are there others out there who debate with themselves on how they answer or respond to a certain type of post.  Are they brutally forthright with their true feelings or do they edit their response upon reading a post from someone else in an ‘effort’ at politeness.  (*Suggestion – contrary to self belief, you DO NOT have to respond to a post just because you see it!  The person is going to do or not do whatever it is they want regardless or in spite of your input.  So if they don’t place that much relevance in your opinion you might rethink doing the same.)  Is it not sad that it should be such a hard won effort in the first place?  Now given, this was in reference apparently to someone who had a habit of posting to the negativity of their life.  Like none of us aren’t familiar with those peeks and valleys ourselves.  The responder wanted to know if there were others out there who felt like she did, that she was ‘restraining’ herself from being harsher in her responses.  I looked at all the replies she in turn got that said they were more than willing to be ‘blunt, honest, true to their own inclinations…’  One went so far as to say ‘offense is taken, never given.’  WTF?  Really?  Believe me, if I’ve a desire to ‘give’ offense the recipient is most definitely aware of it whether they ‘take’ it or not.  I’m sure the quotability looked good even if the thought was ludicrous and fell far short of completion.  Sure, the internet gives us refuge in delightful anonymity so we often think its ‘ok’ to just give it to ‘em straight, tell the truth even if it hurts.  May I remind those of you who feel this way that truth is a matter of perception, not reality.  What may be truth to you may not, in fact, apply to every situation.  So this person, the original poster, tends to run into negativity.  Why is it people think that if they have a single bit of information that the story they create around it to flesh it out without actual input from those whose life they are fictionalizing is 100% accurate?  Good lord, we never believe anyone else’s accuracy to be that high but we sure as hell love to believe we have all the answers all the time!  If that doesn’t scream convenient willful ignorance I don’t know what does.  What also made me respond was that a good number of these responders were writers.  I learned that the cardinal question we all are required as writers to ask ourselves constantly is, ‘what if…’  What if this was a person you loved, what if their circumstances won’t allow them the clarity that others might have in problem solving, what if there are circumstances affecting the situation that they aren’t disclosing…  What if, what if, what if.  We don’t have all the answers and we’ve also stopped asking the right question.  Back to the original poster…  We don’t know what struggles they have had in life; we don’t know what they may have already overcome.  We don’t know the frame of reference that has brought them to this point in life where they are reaching out hoping for a care only to be smacked in the face.  Who even really knows they were looking for a response?  Perhaps the idea was simply to vent, to make what they were struggling with a tangible thing so that they are more able to deal with it.  And what if they were looking for input?  Telling someone to hike up your big girl panties & man up helps how other than to be condescending and callous.  Sure, you can dump your ‘truth’ out there like a stinking pile of verbal garbage and be proud, expecting everyone to be impressed as they walk around it trying not to step on your toes just in case you feel like dumping more but guess what folks, your opinion is simply that, yours.  No better but often worse than you might think it is if all the effort you put into it is casting word bombs, expecting people to think because you do you’re ‘special’.  Not fucking likely.  I am a writer, have been one all my life.  Not because I’m published but because it is something I’ve always done, like breathing, it’s my art, my natural form of expression, a wide open window to my thought process if there are those who care to explore.  Even if they don’t, I’m still going to write even if I sometimes only do it in my head.  I know the importance of words.  I know how they can be healing or hurting, powerful or cutting, inspirational or damning.  All of which is why I don’t throw them about randomly or without thought often.  I’m fine with often keeping my thoughts to myself; they’re good company and they tend to mature better that way.  What I also know about words is that they only have the power someone else assigns to them, that is true, but those who parry with that mighty sword hopes most that their words are powerful enough to cut deepest so there is responsibility when you send them out to represent you.  Too sad is that of late words have become a substitute for action and a wall against empathy.  There is a psychological behavior called leveling in which one elevates them when they feel lesser than another by putting another down.  Some of you ‘internet truth tellers’ might want to dig a bit deeper into your own psyche before you pull out the poison pen, or keyboard as it were.

I am a great believer in Karma.  I’ve often been told that I am far too kind, too polite, too caring for my own good.  I don’t think so.  I put out what I want back.  I treat others as I want to be treated.  I know the stones I cast into the waters of life create waves that affect me as well as the others around me whom I love.  Am I perfect, God no.  I have my moods and there are the trolls who deserve my wrath but it’s vented on those who are blatant idiots.  Not those who are vulnerable.  And yes, I have known more than my fair share of whiners who couldn’t find a positive grain if a beach of it were set before them but my response to that type is to simply remove them from my life and my concern.  Nothing I could say, good or bad, will ever impact them.  They’re bottomless wells and it’s not my job to fill them up but just the same, I’m not insensitive towards them.  I have compassion, empathy and sympathy for them but also know where my boundaries extend and where they do not.  Even if I don’t personally care for them I have my own set of humanitarian mores that I have to answer to and those say I will not go out of my way to be unkind simply because I have the ability to do so.  There is a time, place and audience for rapier wit and that’s generally not served flaming someone’s personal page.  I’m writing this in an attempt to remind some of you out there, you’re better than the internet can influence you to be.  You create your interactions here but karma will find you in your personal life as well.  Example: When you child cries to you of being bullied remember that the bullies learned their intolerance from an intolerant and uncaring parent.  I’m not a tremendously religious person, more a spiritual explorer but the phrase, ‘but by grace go I’, has a big influence on my thoughts and how I interact with others.  There are places where cutting wit is encouraged and welcome but what point is it to take aim at a target that has no defense or doesn’t even know they’re a target.  Wit is a controlled substance, it is ‘verbose genius’ best served to those who appreciate the effort, it’s not hurtful or meant for general audiences.  I started this with a quote I just recently found, it was timely and telling.  One, which perhaps, more should be taking to heart.