Hola! Some quick thoughts on being right today - I'm blessed to have had a great week down in the Yucatan, just doing yoga, teaching yoga, and yoga-ing with the natural world.
Now, back at it and in the groove, getting ready to start back on a fairly regular schedule again, tomorrow. I'm very excited to be back to teaching, and grateful thus far at the amount of support folks have expressed. Just hope to see some bodies show up and find a regular practice again, if it serves.
So, down there, I wasn't off the grid too far, obviously; I blogged, did some videos, wrote an article and made fun of a book. Deservedly so, I made fun of that shite, and in doing so, I apparently really triggered some folks. I get it, my humor was bitingly sarcastic, and the venue was really wide, and the title of the piece was enough to get attention. A setting for a perfect storm, and given the media, a flame up.
At one point, I tried to answer the comments; I don't doubt the sincerity of the feelings and the arguments, they just weren't what I was making. My sarcasm was limited, in my mind, to the very first world problem of bad prose, buzz media and 'naughtiness'.
In that what I wrote solicited so many hurt feelings and outrage, I simply apologized for how my choice of words was easy to interpret and how that made me sorry. I didn't necessarily apologize for my message or the content, just how it made people feel.
And that got someone pissed off enough to write me and try to assail my character. I tell you all this for interest not of that story, but for what it's like to be on the internet, to have opinions and express them, the seeming power of the anonymity of posting on line, and the insult this person took because they thought I had apologized and surrender my right.
One of the things I asked for in the comments was for folks to dialog, but not insult, not hate, but rather to question and read and listen. Not much of that happens, but we know the medium.
For your consideration... can you apologize for how something you expressed made someone feel without negating what you said? Is it one or the other, and does apologizing symbolize capitulation? What do you think? I know we're all in for a lot of disagreement, and if we want to make positive change, it will become necessary to be able to respectfully, non-violently disagree - create space to listen, to create whatever compromise may be, and move forward in dignity and respect.
That's what I'm thinking about today - new ways of dialoguing; maintaining the integrity of my perspective while allowing for others. Looking for the similarities and the congruities and not the fragmentary issues. Hoping to figure out how to summon the common passion for change into building something, rather than tearing down something else.
What's that mean to you - think on it, give thanks and praise!
Now, back at it and in the groove, getting ready to start back on a fairly regular schedule again, tomorrow. I'm very excited to be back to teaching, and grateful thus far at the amount of support folks have expressed. Just hope to see some bodies show up and find a regular practice again, if it serves.
So, down there, I wasn't off the grid too far, obviously; I blogged, did some videos, wrote an article and made fun of a book. Deservedly so, I made fun of that shite, and in doing so, I apparently really triggered some folks. I get it, my humor was bitingly sarcastic, and the venue was really wide, and the title of the piece was enough to get attention. A setting for a perfect storm, and given the media, a flame up.
At one point, I tried to answer the comments; I don't doubt the sincerity of the feelings and the arguments, they just weren't what I was making. My sarcasm was limited, in my mind, to the very first world problem of bad prose, buzz media and 'naughtiness'.
In that what I wrote solicited so many hurt feelings and outrage, I simply apologized for how my choice of words was easy to interpret and how that made me sorry. I didn't necessarily apologize for my message or the content, just how it made people feel.
And that got someone pissed off enough to write me and try to assail my character. I tell you all this for interest not of that story, but for what it's like to be on the internet, to have opinions and express them, the seeming power of the anonymity of posting on line, and the insult this person took because they thought I had apologized and surrender my right.
One of the things I asked for in the comments was for folks to dialog, but not insult, not hate, but rather to question and read and listen. Not much of that happens, but we know the medium.
For your consideration... can you apologize for how something you expressed made someone feel without negating what you said? Is it one or the other, and does apologizing symbolize capitulation? What do you think? I know we're all in for a lot of disagreement, and if we want to make positive change, it will become necessary to be able to respectfully, non-violently disagree - create space to listen, to create whatever compromise may be, and move forward in dignity and respect.
That's what I'm thinking about today - new ways of dialoguing; maintaining the integrity of my perspective while allowing for others. Looking for the similarities and the congruities and not the fragmentary issues. Hoping to figure out how to summon the common passion for change into building something, rather than tearing down something else.
What's that mean to you - think on it, give thanks and praise!
