With Mischief, There Comes a Price. Thank Your Local Loki. (Or not.)
I had to take a few hours to breath before the decision was made to post. I'm sure that each of us has encountered internet backstabbing on some level. I spent the past three and a half hours reading one community on LJ and I will not post the name for reasons of possible backlash. I am no coward though I really felt like I had stepped in one huge hornet's nest of poor social decorum in cyberspace.
I'm sure that most of you are aware that I do things like this from time to time to gauge, encounter, engage and often scrutinized for my involvement of playing the devil's advocate in many situations ranging from abuse to social networking. This is one such incident. Be advised that I am not here to tell you how to live your internet lives, but rather inform you that such literary sparring is not for the faint of heart.
We all have some sort of mask we wear when we go into communities to discuss certain things. Some masks are thin while others are thick and hard to see through. I am such a person that has one just like most others on the internet. Why? The answer isn't as cut and dry as one would expect. My journal here is pretty detached with emotion. The reason for this is I feel that it is unnecessary for me to reveal my emotional identity. My journal is for my own purposes just as everyone else here in LJ has one for theirs. It is a push and pull of high standards or lack thereof.
True I come across as condescending to some. True I come across as verbose and lack prose. I am an aspiring Sociologist with love of art in the form of prose that I use in my daily RPing. What I do in RPs are strictly kept there and I do not discuss my encounters. Why? It's fun. It is an escape for me to become someone else. It's a mask I wear.
Behind this mask is a person that has a purpose. I have discussed in the past some very hard issues that are not so easily addressed. I chose to do this for the reasons that I am not out to impress, make friends or talk about what goes on in my daily life like what I had for breakfast.
I spend many hours watching people even when I work. I find that through an objective view that people in general are not true to themselves. They gossip, back stab, emotionally abuse through verbal and non-verbal communication and sometimes lack consideration. I too am accused of this. Why do we do such things? The answer could be pretty clear. Most times it is for personal gain. Other times we hide behind the generalization that we are perfect and don't need to change at all and everyone else is wrong. There are a handful of individuals that are honest both inside and outside of the internet. Those handful of individuals set new standards and often are stepped on due to this honesty.
What defines honesty? Honesty by definition is:
-noun, plural -ties.
1. the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness.
2. truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness.
3. freedom from deceit or fraud.
4. Botany. a plant, Lunaria annua, of the mustard family, having clusters of purple flowers and semitransparent, satiny pods.
5. Obsolete. chastity.
Knowing the truth of situations presented to us often becomes the proving grounds for us later in life. Some do not see the truth until the situation opens up and we are seeing the facts before us. Objective reasoning often times hurts or harms us when we think we are being honest. This in turn becomes an attack to some that are not accustomed to objective reasoning. Do we continue to stand our ground and try to present a viable solution? It depends on the responses we receive. Once a dialog is engaged, often times objectivity is viewed as abrasive and hard. Most emotional thinkers do not move from their points of view. Others tend to try to sway objective thinkers to their side. Often times, this becomes a debate of proportions that is varied in degree and hardly transverse. A decision is often made that once a point is proven the other moves aside though the reasoning is still there.
Needless to say, I was appalled at first when I made my encounter and prepared myself for the assault. I knew that it was an inevitable task that I had to see to its completion, and as a result I came across to those that I had encountered as pertinacious. This was the result that I had been looking for and it served me well to stand my ground as the devil's advocate. I bowed out in a civil manner and yet the only thing I had gained from the encounter was a grain of knowledge. The knowledge that not only many that frequent a community forum are gossipers by nature but also back stabbers. In truth, those few that are honest in these communities are judged by the terrible nature of their peers that dragged these few in the mud.
Would I return? Perhaps. I'm curious now.
I'm sure that most of you are aware that I do things like this from time to time to gauge, encounter, engage and often scrutinized for my involvement of playing the devil's advocate in many situations ranging from abuse to social networking. This is one such incident. Be advised that I am not here to tell you how to live your internet lives, but rather inform you that such literary sparring is not for the faint of heart.
We all have some sort of mask we wear when we go into communities to discuss certain things. Some masks are thin while others are thick and hard to see through. I am such a person that has one just like most others on the internet. Why? The answer isn't as cut and dry as one would expect. My journal here is pretty detached with emotion. The reason for this is I feel that it is unnecessary for me to reveal my emotional identity. My journal is for my own purposes just as everyone else here in LJ has one for theirs. It is a push and pull of high standards or lack thereof.
True I come across as condescending to some. True I come across as verbose and lack prose. I am an aspiring Sociologist with love of art in the form of prose that I use in my daily RPing. What I do in RPs are strictly kept there and I do not discuss my encounters. Why? It's fun. It is an escape for me to become someone else. It's a mask I wear.
Behind this mask is a person that has a purpose. I have discussed in the past some very hard issues that are not so easily addressed. I chose to do this for the reasons that I am not out to impress, make friends or talk about what goes on in my daily life like what I had for breakfast.
I spend many hours watching people even when I work. I find that through an objective view that people in general are not true to themselves. They gossip, back stab, emotionally abuse through verbal and non-verbal communication and sometimes lack consideration. I too am accused of this. Why do we do such things? The answer could be pretty clear. Most times it is for personal gain. Other times we hide behind the generalization that we are perfect and don't need to change at all and everyone else is wrong. There are a handful of individuals that are honest both inside and outside of the internet. Those handful of individuals set new standards and often are stepped on due to this honesty.
What defines honesty? Honesty by definition is:
-noun, plural -ties.
1. the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness.
2. truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness.
3. freedom from deceit or fraud.
4. Botany. a plant, Lunaria annua, of the mustard family, having clusters of purple flowers and semitransparent, satiny pods.
5. Obsolete. chastity.
Knowing the truth of situations presented to us often becomes the proving grounds for us later in life. Some do not see the truth until the situation opens up and we are seeing the facts before us. Objective reasoning often times hurts or harms us when we think we are being honest. This in turn becomes an attack to some that are not accustomed to objective reasoning. Do we continue to stand our ground and try to present a viable solution? It depends on the responses we receive. Once a dialog is engaged, often times objectivity is viewed as abrasive and hard. Most emotional thinkers do not move from their points of view. Others tend to try to sway objective thinkers to their side. Often times, this becomes a debate of proportions that is varied in degree and hardly transverse. A decision is often made that once a point is proven the other moves aside though the reasoning is still there.
Needless to say, I was appalled at first when I made my encounter and prepared myself for the assault. I knew that it was an inevitable task that I had to see to its completion, and as a result I came across to those that I had encountered as pertinacious. This was the result that I had been looking for and it served me well to stand my ground as the devil's advocate. I bowed out in a civil manner and yet the only thing I had gained from the encounter was a grain of knowledge. The knowledge that not only many that frequent a community forum are gossipers by nature but also back stabbers. In truth, those few that are honest in these communities are judged by the terrible nature of their peers that dragged these few in the mud.
Would I return? Perhaps. I'm curious now.