Whatever in the world for? I am completely and blissfully unaware of any idiocy or transgressions that beg my forgiveness.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote: What bugs me about this thread is that it makes it not okay for someone to be angry - it makes an entire category of emotions unacceptable
I don't see this thread as saying that at all. It's saying that you have every right to be angry--twinky admitted being mad. But he's suggesting that we should exercise a little bit of self-restraint and refrain from posting while mad. That's what is counterproductive IMHO.
Posts: 786 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Actually, I see it as more of saying "shut up" rather than "calm down." Neither statement is going to make you less mad, but the advice to shut up is, if heeded, the best course of action.
It doesn't mean you shouldn't say what's on your mind. It means you should refrain from saying it until the strong anger emotion behind it has passed. I try to go by the half-hour rule. If someone posts something on Hatrack that ticks me off, I wait a half hour before posting a reply. Usually by then other people have replied to the offensive post in a manner better than I could accomplish while spitting mad, so I don't have to reply at all.
Posts: 786 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
By the way, lest I come off sounding holier-than-thou, I will in the interest of full disclosure say that I have a really bad temper which is easily provoked, and have occasionally posted in anger on the 'rack. It's only recently that I've had some success in implementing the half-hour rule, and I admit I'm still a work in progress.
Posts: 786 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes, things do actually need to be said.
Squick, I understood you. I was trying to empathize with your statement. Lightning rods do something that needs doing. It doesn't make it fun, though. And I agree with you that sometimes, a statement just needs to be made. Or a confrontation or whatever. Been there, done that, got the battle scars and find that my threshold for 'moral imperative' has gotten a lot more cynical.
That's all I meant. Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
BJH's first post on this page hit the nail on the head. "Don't post in anger" is not "calm down."
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I think it is okay to be angry. I am sort of sorry for being rude to Karl, although I don't think I was deliberately except for the bite me (Kayla and Squicky were mean enough that I still think they are fair game), but I think saying one is angry is okay. It's okay to be angry when disrespected or hurt. I know I don't like being told not to feel the way that I do, and being told to go away feels like saying that that emotion is unacceptable.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
"Don't post in anger" is also not "it is not okay to be angry," though. That's a really big distinction. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Hhm...is it on a forum? Posting is all the communication there is. If someone isn't allowed to express anger or post while angry, that's the equivelent to not allowing them to be angry.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I disagree. I don't think emotions have to be expressed to be experienced. For instance, I was livid with someone on a forum a while ago. I didn't post. I was still angry, but now I'm very glad that I didn't post about it. If I'd felt very strongly about it after the fact, I would have taken it to e-mail.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
It's how that anger is expressed that changes. A powerful message delivered with a carefully calculated fury can be far more effective than lashing out without thinking.
When a post makes me really angry -- doesn't happen often and has never happened here, but it's happened -- I made a point of typing out my reply and then going back to it ten minutes later. I was still angry, but I was able to choose my words carefully, delete the words that were chosen in haste specifically to hurt, and get my ideas across with a much greater impact. I had time to understand where the anger came from and how the other person was playing on it so I could try to defuse the situation and speak with the voice of sweet reason.
At least, that was the theory... Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Yes, I use the "preview post" button quite extensively, and I try to make a special effort to use it when I'm concerned about being offensive or when I'm irritated. That helps.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I am in this book club, and we just finished a little book called Big Girls Don't Whine. It wasn't very deep and I wouldn't have picked it, but it wasn't that bad, and her ideas were simple and common sense. Lately if I want to write a post and I feel emotional I write it in Notepad and I think to myself, is this a Big Girl post, or is this an immature, nasty, or selfish Little Girl post? If I'm not sure, I don't post it for a couple hours. Actually helps a lot. Silly, I know.
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I have a file I use to type up posts I know I shouldn't post. Sometimes they get edited and posted later; sometimes they never do.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Btw, although I may be somewhat socially inept in my own social interactions, in person, I am *darn* good at analyzing other people's interactions, extracting their motivations, and spinning it in the direction the person I'm talking to is most likely to be receptive to hearing.
I don't do it like I used to because it feels cheap. I felt guilty after I did it this weekend with one of Steve's brothers. Even if it was for a good purpose,(people within the family getting along) and Steve was ok it.
posted
So maybe not "Calm down," and maybe not "Don't post when angry," but "Don't post without thinking. And if you're angry, do it twice."
When we're angry we say things intended just to hurt people, and we often regret them. When we take the time to think, we can make our point without hurting and without regret.
It's part of growing up: learning to censor our own words so we can make our point without hurting people. Often takes a whole lifetime or more. We're lucky on the forum we can stop and think, and preview, and edit ... not so lucky in real life.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I find this an interesting discussion in the abstract, and not as it applies to any particular thread. I have found people differ enormously in how they take the same phrasing. I've been astonished many times that someone might find offense in something I meant as positive approbation, and occasionally I'm greatly relieved that something I feared was not phrased as felicitously as I had hoped, was nevertheless taken in good spirit, sometimes better than it deserved, which made me quite happy.
I've tried assiduously to ameliorate my reponses to unpleasant things, deciding just not to let things bother me. I've had some success, but I wonder if it came at the expense of caring? I wonder sometimes if it's possible to care deeply about people while not letting anything they do hurt or offend you? Is that detachment that seems necessary to maintain a cheerful equanimity also a barrier to empathy or to any profounder type of love?
posted
After further reading and cogitation, I wonder if we should take anger as being a sort of love? Is anyone every angry at or about someone about whom they care nothing whatsoever?
About 3 weeks before my father died, I called my mom and he answered the phone. He was not one for chatting, not being someone who actually had any small talk. So I said hi and asked to speak to mom but he asked me how I was feeling (I was sick at the time with something or other of no importance). I briefly answered what he wanted to know, and he yelled at me angrily for not taking good enough care of myself and said I needed to see the doctor or else I might die. (I'm getting emotional remembering this.) I think he had just discovered that if you neglect some things, they can become serious. That was Dad. <laughcries> He would discover something like that, decades after everyone else had been trying to suggest it to him, and suddenly it was the most important thing ever, and he was the only one who knew, and you'd better listen to what he said. Funny that remembering that trait now (3.5 years after he died) just makes me miss him terribly and wish desperately for someone with exactly that trait to be in my life again. <laughcries more> Gosh the very things that infuriate you about people you love can become transmuted into something so wonderful like that. What was I saying?
Oh yeah, because I knew how sick he was, and saw that yelling-at I got more deeply than I had ever seen it before, I realized that it was his version of tenderest love and concern. Just like that time I was sobbing uncontrollably about my friend who killed himself when I was 16 and Dad came in and yelled angrily "why the !@(>@&? did that stupid boy have to shoot himself anyway?" and it was the worst possible thing he could have said and made me sadder and also angry at him and it was all because he loved me. He was upset at my sorrow, and it made him angry at my friend who had inadvertantly caused it.
How strange, how strange, that violent anger is sometimes an expression of love? I wonder if I can remember that the next time I'm angry or someone is angry at me? It seems like if I could think of it at the exact moment it was happening, it might change something for the better somehow. Doesn't it?
quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: Btw, although I may be somewhat socially inept in my own social interactions, in person, I am *darn* good at analyzing other people's interactions, extracting their motivations,AJ
My son is borderline Asperger's and I find this is true of him... He's not too good at social stuff that involves him, but as an observer, he's often spot-on.
I honestly think one problem in the sort of thread we're talking about is that sometimes we humans tend to, well, belabor a point... Once in college, back in the Reagan era, my circle of friends consisted of die-hard liberals with the exception of one guy, who was a die-hard conservative. Right before the elections of '84, we were arguing and arguing, and he was countering, and one friend said to him "You don't understand my point!" and Bill the conservative said "I do understand your point, I just totally disagree!" Which shut us all up.
I think we all like to believe that if everyone understood the clear thinking and impeccable logic by which we arrive at our opinions, they would of course agree with us. Conversely, if a person doesn't realize we are right, they must not understand our point, so we keep explaining and explaining... and sometimes we take it a little too personally, and let our emotions carry us away...
I've done this myself, I've seen it here, I've seen it in real life.
As others have said, it's okay to be angry, and it's okay to have heated discussions. But it's also good to take a step back and think twice before you post. I've deleted many a post myself rather than add it...
Posts: 239 | Registered: May 2004
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