I appreciate the comments on my last post. All your comments and feelings and struggles are so valid. I am pretty at peace with the social media cutting out - I haven't missed any of the people I unfriended. I do think they probably noticed, because it was immediately after our last argument, and neither of them had a ton of followers. But whatever, I was by far not the most important person in their sphere. I also left the neighbourhood moms group I was in on Facebook for years too, because I was so done with the incessant squabbling and the dickhead anti-vaxxers. Then a year or so later a friend added me to a new group that she said was less annoying. And it was, for a while, and then it was annoying again and I left again, which I was ridiculously proud of myself for, because a few years ago I wouldn't have, and it was 100% the right move for my blood pressure.
I do still occasionally get sucked into arguing with buttheads on Facebook. I know my mental health is slipping when I catch myself doing it again after I haven't for weeks or months. Sometimes it's too easy (man: "women enjoy being objectified - look at the lyrics to that song "I Enjoy Being a Girl"; me: that's a song from the fifties that was written BY A MAN, Dumbass"). Sometimes it's gratifying to slip in one clever remark, get a hundred likes and disappear into the night. Mostly it's a fruitless waste of energy.
Sometimes I just have to let people enjoy things too. I'm on Goodreads to track my reading (I joined after my kids asked me years ago if I thought I'd read a thousand books and I had no idea, so I looked around to see if there was a way to figure it out) and for book recommendations. I also follow them on Facebook - less sure about why I'm doing that, most of the time when they ask "What are you reading this weekend?" I have no interest in answering or seeing anyone else's answer. Last week they posted an article from a site called The Everygirl, titled "I've Already Read 100 Books This Year - Here's a Recommendation in Every Genre". Perfectly lovely, right? Of course, many many people had to crowd the comments with "*eyeroll* hasn't everyone?" or "actually the number of books you read is irrelevant, I read every sentence over twenty-eight times to wring every last drop of significance from it - sometimes I even lick the page just to get the flavour of the words", and "ugh, I've only read 99, I'm such a slouch". One woman said "I'm on my 125th! Amazing how much reading you do when you don't watch tv!" with the smug emoji (yeah, I know there's not actually a smug emoji, and yet somehow this emoji radiated smugness). I almost replied "I'm on 129 and I watch a ton of tv - you must be a really slow reader", but I didn't, because THAT WOULD BE UNKIND. True, but unkind.
Back to what Swistle and Nicole said, though, which articulates something I was trying to get to on my own - if someone is a good person in all the ways that count materially, like if they treat everyone kindly and embody all the values I find important, then what benefit is there to calling them out on some objectionable views they might hold because someone they trust has told them something that they don't have the critical faculties to dispute? At that point, arguing with them is probably more about my own self-importance than any righteous cause.
Part of the problem is that I feel like I didn't do or say enough for a long time, so now it feels like I shouldn't miss a chance to speak up. In actual fact, I should almost certainly miss some chances to speak up.
Anyways, I didn't sleep well and my back hurt and I was sort of dreading the long day going in to work today, but it went fast with all the classes, most of them were lovely, and one grade six girl came in to help shelves books at recess and reminded me of my daughter at the same age: "I look at these scary books, and I start reading the description, and it's interesting so I read more, and then it's terrifying and I cry. Curiosity killed not the cat, but my dignity."
11 comments:
Ooooh. That last bit got me. It really is like that, isn't it?
Back before social media and the internet, we didn't know each other so thoroughly. And I think it's better, maybe (as I blog about all of my personal thoughts) to not know every person's every thought at every moment of the day. But when you have the option to know, it's so hard to look away.
I hope you sleep better tonight, and that your back feels much better tomorrow.
What on earth. Are people actually writing these things about how many books they read and look here, I don't watch TV? So silly. I like your thought - 129, you must be a slow reader. Bah ha ha.
I feel like the older I get, the less patience I have with people saying or doing dumb things, but I appreciate your point. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to point these things out. Well, I think that was your point. ;)
Is that last bit what the 6th grader said, or what your daughter said? It's a lot like life, isn't it?
People on social media can be so petty and mean and I don't know why. No one wants to know every thought that ever went through your head, so be quiet. Right? I mean, I'm guilty of posting pictures of my breakfast just like everyone else, but I do try to be nice most of the time.
"I'm on 129 and I watch a ton of tv - you must be a really slow reader", but I didn't, because THAT WOULD BE UNKIND. True, but unkind." LOL LOL LOL LOL
“Sometimes I even lick the page just to get the flavour of the words”...Hahaha. Love it. I also frequently keep my mouth shut because I cannot be unkind. I never want to hurt someone’s feelings, even if they are an asshole.
So. Different perspective. I have a large family - husband & I between us have 7 kids, plus 7 partners and believe me there are different political opinions. One of my sons who is smart, kind, generous a great father & husband has completely opposite beliefs than me. My daughter is as opposite to him as possible (she has all the good stuff, but politically opposite). There were a few big fights (however every phone call still ended with “I love you”) but eventually we need to learn that we are all different and sometimes it’s ok. That’s just one example of the differing personalities. And ultimately they are giving us a bunch of wonderful grandchildren, 9 and more on the way. Those guys I already know will develop their own annoying personalities!
I laughed so much about goodreads. I have the app but I don't use it to track because basically I am annoyed by 99% of the reviews that pop up. I don't know what it is, but any book I like will have SO MANY negative reviews, which is annoying, and then if there is a book I don't like, I will bitchily look up to see if anyone else hated it, and the reviews are always THIS IS THE GREATEST BOOK OF ALL TIME. So I do keep the app, but I don't use it properly so I should probably delete.
The whole "I don't watch TV" thing is very irritating because it's always said IN A CERTAIN WAY. Years and years and years ago we were having dinner with friends, and my husband mentioned watching sports. This woman said "Oh. I don't spectate." and sometimes I think of that comment and think, wtf, get over yourself.
I'm pretty sure you passed the 1,000 mark quite some time ago. When I got on GR, I decided I would only track books starting from a few months before I joined because I knew I couldn't remember every book I'd ever read and having the record pre-2016 be inaccurate seemed worse than not having it at all, because I am like that.
I want to shelve books with that little girl.
Someone created a FB group during the pandemic all around safety in our public schools (re: mask mandates and vaccines) and I agree with everything they posted. But they were so obnoxious and smug and I had to leave the group. So, even if you AGREE, that doesn't mean you have to be part of something if it doesn't add to your life.
I don't want very much tv (aside from Taskmaster and The Great British Bake-Off, which are mandatory weekend watching), but I actually see it as a failing on my part. I never really learned how to watch tv, so I concentrate so hard to figure out what's important and what's not and it's exhausting. So when people talk about tv things, I have NO IDEA what's going on 99.9% of the time and have to just apologize for the fact that I don't. I swear I don't have the TONE. It's really a problem on MY END, not everyone else's.
"if someone is a good person in all the ways that count materially, like if they treat everyone kindly and embody all the values I find important, then what benefit is there to calling them out on some objectionable views they might hold because someone they trust has told them something that they don't have the critical faculties to dispute? At that point, arguing with them is probably more about my own self-importance than any righteous cause." I hear this, and I understand this ... but it's really possible that those objectionable views are hurting other people. So that's where the dilemma comes in. I've met more than one person who is really nice and kind to my own daughter, but then will spout ignorant, unfounded, and wrong views about LGBTQ people, and those views are making the world a lot more dangerous for my daughter, so the good of being nice to her face is really undone by making it more likely that some person out there will feel entitled to use violence against her. By pointing this out, I'm not saying I handle these situations well, or that there is a "good" way to handle these situations. But they're not simple, that's for sure.
I don't know, it's so difficult. I don't mean, with my Miss Viv, that I think we shouldn't push back when she says her occasional things, even though she is so great in so many ways---because those occasional things ARE still really, really wrong; and I don't want other people to see her say those things and think no one objects / everyone else must agree. But it's so hard to do that when it's a kind sweet old lady who is probably not going to understand what we're telling her, which goes along with your critical faculties point. I did say on her Ped0 J0e post something like "Miss Viv, what IS this? 'Ped0 J0e'??"---because I thought she could easily have just hit Share without really noticing the text around the image (which she didn't write), or whatever. I let a lot of it go, though, even though I didn't let it go with my cousin; I guess for me, part of it is that I am not consistent, and part of it is that I have higher expectations for younger people than for older one, whether or not that's fair.
Arguing on social media really is a fruitless endeavor, and yet, sometimes I cannot resist a snarky comment (and then I disappear into the night LOL) because they sit on their high horses.
What does it say about me that I haven't even read 10 books this year and I also don't watch much TV? Oh, might I be doing other things with my time? Which is totally valid and nobody's business to judge! ;)
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