Crazy thought

[Anon100]

So I had my usual thing of my brain turning over and over a problem and end up coming up with what may or may not be a good/crazy idea.
It was something Altair said in a post here - https://ecauldron.com/forum/political-discussions/savage-band-of-neo-barbarians-agitate-against-glorious-civilisation/msg229992/#msg229992

I hear what you're saying. But especially after yesterday, I'm at a loss how you ease people's irrational fears and resentments, because reason doesn't seem to budge them one iota. And I'm done appeasing their resentments. That doesn't seem to get anywhere with them either, except to embolden them.

And honestly, it rankles. Take the case of Confederate statues: Those who defend them didn't have their ancestors brought here in chains; didn't suffer through the harms of segregation; weren't the ones who had to have the symbols of their oppression, in statues and that damn flag, rubbed in their faces deliberately as an answer to a civil rights movement that dared to suggest we should be treated equally.

And yet we're supposed to be sensitive to resentments they might harbor about losing those statues?

I don't have good answers. Not after this election.

I felt when reading that, that I could get a glimpse of why it's so important in a way that reading history or watching a mass event on tv can't show.
What I was wondering was how would people feel if I started a 'memory tree' thread? What I'm thinking is a thread where we can each write a post of the important and deep events that have affected us - basically sharing a 'story' of why we feel what we do from living it, in the hopes that it makes it easier for others to see why certain things are so important for us.
I know that people have said things are important and history has shown why, and probably most people are fed up with opening their hearts to try to make a harsh world listen, I just wonder if it's worth another shot.
I also realise that we're only a small community but even now I can see 61 guests on here.

I'm not suggesting posting just about the obvious things such as persecution or having to fight to just be who you've always meant to, I'm also thinking of the pain of bullying or fear ( yes, I can post something on bullying so I'm not suggesting something I won't do ), all the things big and small which give people a way to listen, as they see a little of themselves in the same position.
And the thing is that, even with the hurt I think we may each be able to show a little hope or positive which makes it easier for people to want to listen.

Anyway I'd love to hear the thoughts of people who have lived through what I haven't on whether this is a good idea to do or just my stupid and lack of understanding coming out. 

[Anon100]

Anyway I'd love to hear the thoughts of people who have lived through what I haven't on whether this is a good idea to do or just my stupid and lack of understanding coming out.

If it helps to clarify, this is what I'd include - ( warning - talks about bullying and self blame )

Spoiler:  

You know, there's a reason I tend to stick my nose into trying to bring people together, even when I know how useless I am at it.

I can't really remember what happened - no awful details engraved in my memory, or scars I can show. I was bullied, or so I was told.
What I do remember is the grey, both in my heart and in my vision. Life was grey and I learnt to come to terms with the fact that I was nothing. I didn't deserve to be happy, nor was I good enough to love, and as for friends, what could I offer and the only reason they'd be there was because they didn't realise who I was.

It's not about the things that people think of as bullying, such as words and cruel laughter, punches or being ignored. When all of that ends and there are no scars to see, the pain is still burying itself inside.
All those little fears which grow under a lens of self doubt; all those things you tell yourself that you're not good enough for; the way you somehow sabotage so much because you 'know' they'll never work. All of these and more are what bullying really means. 

I held on by dreaming - imagining a world of light and colour where peace and kindness grow like precious flowers and where animals and plants and magical creatures could all reach out and touch each other.
Conversly, I blamed myself for every mistake or hurt, no matter if I even had the power for that. It's odd that I could think myself a nothing yet carry the ills of the world on my shoulders to prove how useless I was, but I never questioned it.
I guess it was an inner strength which made me want to keep trying to make them right. Some deep shout which said, you cannot leave your mistakes as they are, you must fix them.

It doesn't leave you, even when all the bullies are gone and the past has passed. There are always whispers in the dark, telling you how wrong you are and that all you've done is just a lie. Every mistake is hashed over by your guilt and every success is in question. Every day is a long line of fears and it's easy to run away by lying to the world and your loved ones, sometimes it can even be too scary to face waking or being alive.

It's true, the scars are always there, hidden deep inside. Yet, with every time I don't lie or I try to do my best, they grow a little softer, more faded, quieter.
And so I try, I wish and dream and hope to bring a little light where I walk through this world, because I want to imagine others seeing a world like the one I held so long and I hope for days when I don't need to fear doing wrong or being a mistake.

I'd do so hoping that some people who'd happen on it would understand that scars aren't always visible and can last a lifetime and that sometimes you can be reacting to your inner voice as much as to the world at large.

[Jenett]

Anyway I'd love to hear the thoughts of people who have lived through what I haven't on whether this is a good idea to do or just my stupid and lack of understanding coming out.

(Speaking with my librarian hat on, not my staff hat on.)

This kind of thing is something archivists have been talking about recently. (I am not an archivist, I'm a librarian, but I've been talking to my colleagues.)

The conversations have been both about "how do we document the pandemic" and also "how do we deal with materials in our collections about marginalised communities" (in our case, our collection deals with a particular collection of often marginalised people, but we've been talking a lot more about how to both highlight and deal respectfully with material from people who aren't from white reasonably middle class backgrounds.)

One of things about trauma is, well, it's traumatic to revisit it. Encouraging people to revisit it (or having any kind of social pressure to share) can obviously do a tremendous amount of ongoing harm, even if the reasons for that are theoretically beneficial to others.

One of the things a lot of archivists have been trying to figure out right now is "How do we encourage people to share their experiences of Covid without re-traumatising them" and "What happens if they change their minds about what they want to share down the road" (in part because a lot of us are really aware of how much stuff wasn't documented in 1918...)

Asking people to share something deeply personal to them may not be a good fit with this particular forum, where we do not delete posts (or edit out personal information) except under a few very rare conditions. If someone posts something today, but in a year or three years, or five, decides that they're not comfortable with it being out there, that puts both them and the forum in a really difficult position - and for something that might not be a lot of benefit to people.

(Obviously, the web is a searchable archivable space in a lot of ways these days, too, and that's a whole other level of complexity.)

Collecting and reading that kind of material can also be traumatising or re-traumatising with the people who manage the space (whether that's librarians and archivists in a formal collection, forum staff on a forum, people tagging or otherwise sorting info, etc.)

The more I've done that kind of work, the less I want to make other people miserable managing my stuff, y'know? (Besides my library work, I did Terms of Service volunteer work for LiveJournal back in 2003/2004, which, um, had a lot of this stuff in the mix.)

And on a purely magical level, part of my own magical and witchy training was to be careful about what I put out where other people could use it to do damage to me. As you say, there are the people logged into the forum, but there are also a lot of guests I don't know anything about.

The things I share on here (and have shared on here over two decades) are true, and many of them are personal - but for many many reasons (starting with privacy, continuing to 'let's not give other people ways to damage me', and wandering onwards to 'the Internet is going to change in all sorts of ways I can't predict, but I'm sure there will be changes'), there's plenty of stuff I don't share here, and never will.

I'm going to suggest that for people who do want it to be marginally public, that a pseudonymous blog or other tools that make a larger disconnect between people (and where shutting down/disconnecting yourself from the blog is more an option) is an option. So is finding specific like-minded people you can build trust with specifically. (And for people with an interest in a specific topic like bullying, there are online spaces that focus on all sorts of topics like those.)

Both of these have somewhat more control and protection rather than encouraging people to share things that are intensely private or relating to significant traumatic experiences in a forum space largely open to the world.

[Anon100]

Both of these have somewhat more control and protection rather than encouraging people to share things that are intensely private or relating to significant traumatic experiences in a forum space largely open to the world.

Thanks Jenett.
I can understand that and accept that it's something best not looked into any further.
As I say, I can mull over ideas but I often miss the obvious real life difficulty or dangers of it.

[SunflowerP]

Asking people to share something deeply personal to them may not be a good fit with this particular forum, where we do not delete posts (or edit out personal information) except under a few very rare conditions.

A clarification: we do edit out personal information of the sort that directly exposes the poster to potential undesirable interactions (such as telephone numbers and email addresses) as a matter of policy, without waiting for the poster to request that we do so, and sometimes much to their indignation. (We usually post to explain what we've done and why - basically, those 61 guests again, many of which are likely to be search-engine and archive 'bots - but some people just won't believe TC isn't magically safe from internet randos.)

What Jenett means is that we don't remove material that someone includes in their post, but afterwards decides is 'too personal' and asks us to delete.

Sunflower
TC Forum Staff

[Altair]

So I had my usual thing of my brain turning over and over a problem and end up coming up with what may or may not be a good/crazy idea.
It was something Altair said in a post here - https://ecauldron.com/forum/political-discussions/savage-band-of-neo-barbarians-agitate-against-glorious-civilisation/msg229992/#msg229992

I felt when reading that, that I could get a glimpse of why it's so important in a way that reading history or watching a mass event on tv can't show.
What I was wondering was how would people feel if I started a 'memory tree' thread? What I'm thinking is a thread where we can each write a post of the important and deep events that have affected us - basically sharing a 'story' of why we feel what we do from living it, in the hopes that it makes it easier for others to see why certain things are so important for us.
I know that people have said things are important and history has shown why, and probably most people are fed up with opening their hearts to try to make a harsh world listen, I just wonder if it's worth another shot.
I also realise that we're only a small community but even now I can see 61 guests on here.

I'm not suggesting posting just about the obvious things such as persecution or having to fight to just be who you've always meant to, I'm also thinking of the pain of bullying or fear ( yes, I can post something on bullying so I'm not suggesting something I won't do ), all the things big and small which give people a way to listen, as they see a little of themselves in the same position.
And the thing is that, even with the hurt I think we may each be able to show a little hope or positive which makes it easier for people to want to listen.

Anyway I'd love to hear the thoughts of people who have lived through what I haven't on whether this is a good idea to do or just my stupid and lack of understanding coming out.

Interesting idea. I'm not sure what I think about it...but I like the fact that you're brainstorming on how to bridge society's seemingly intractable divisions.

[Allaya]

Interesting idea. I'm not sure what I think about it...but I like the fact that you're brainstorming on how to bridge society's seemingly intractable divisions.

I like the idea too, but I'd sure as hell not want to air out personal trauma in a public-facing post. Which would defeat the purpose of the exercise. Soooo....

[Anon100]

I like the idea too, but I'd sure as hell not want to air out personal trauma in a public-facing post. Which would defeat the purpose of the exercise. Soooo....

I guess the question then is, what would you feel comfortable doing that would help and what do we need for it?

I mean if it's something like creating an anonymous blog page, well I've already created a blog for myself so I'm sure I can create another one. If there's some other ideas maybe there's options there too.

[Anon100]

I guess the question then is, what would you feel comfortable doing that would help and what do we need for it?

I mean if it's something like creating an anonymous blog page, well I've already created a blog for myself so I'm sure I can create another one. If there's some other ideas maybe there's options there too.

What I mean is, I don't know what I can offer to help make people see. It seems from your replies that you think doing something could help but it's obvious that my idea ( as is so common for me ) lacked an understanding of how it would affect people.
I don't mind having a go at writing or building blogs etc but I'm crap at emoting, I can twist ideas through my noodle easily but I have no ground to stand on when it comes to real world thinking.

In the end I need help to grasp how to make more of my thoughts than just an idealised hope and deep frustration.
Frankly I think anything which hurts those who it's meant to help is a bad idea but I know there must be a better one.

[sevensons]

So I had my usual thing of my brain turning over and over a problem and end up coming up with what may or may not be a good/crazy idea.

A shattering thought.

[Sefiru]

Anyway I'd love to hear the thoughts of people who have lived through what I haven't on whether this is a good idea to do or just my stupid and lack of understanding coming out.

Coming back around to this thread to point out that there are already many people around the world who have made the decision to share their personal experiences, via books, articles, youtube videos or what have you, for an incredible range of viewpoints and situations. Everything is online, you just need to seek it out.

[Anon100]

Coming back around to this thread to point out that there are already many people around the world who have made the decision to share their personal experiences, via books, articles, youtube videos or what have you, for an incredible range of viewpoints and situations. Everything is online, you just need to seek it out.

Fair point. And thanks for putting up with my being me.

[PerditaPickle]

I'd love to hear the thoughts of people who have lived through what I haven't on whether this is a good idea to do or just my stupid and lack of understanding coming out.

I don't feel it's stupid or a lack of understanding, I get the sense that you're an idealist.  And the world needs some idealists, just as it needs some of us cynics too!  Also, it's great that you ran the idea past us all, first.

I guess the question then is, what would you feel comfortable doing that would help and what do we need for it?

I like to try to share inspiration and simple tips for day-to-day living, wherever I can.  And that might not reach a wide audience, but if I mention something to some people and they each later mention it to some other people, you never know how far it might manage to spread out.

For example, self-care is something that's really important to me lately so I keep harping on about the sources of information I've found and the tips I've learned with friends and colleagues alike, especially during these 2020 times.  If they're interested, they can make a mental note and go look up the author or watch the TED talk or see if they can download the app, or whatever.  If they're not they can just forget it -- but they may not forget it completely, and then later if they're chatting to someone else and the same topic comes up they may just recall the info and pass it on.

How would people feel about an inspiration thread?  We could share authors and anecdotes, if people were comfortable with it.

Another example, I learned about a gent who was having an individual (but notable) impact on reducing racial intolerance.  I was going to share this behind a spoiler tag but then I didn't feel comfortable about that, so here is the Wikipedia page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis

[Anon100]

How would people feel about an inspiration thread?  We could share authors and anecdotes, if people were comfortable with it.

Another example, I learned about a gent who was having an individual (but notable) impact on reducing racial intolerance.  I was going to share this behind a spoiler tag but then I didn't feel comfortable about that, so here is the Wikipedia page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis

Thanks Perdita. I realise sometimes I'm idealistic without a sense of realism ( so to speak ) so it's good that there's everyone here to tap me on the shoulder every so often.

I certainly like the idea of that thread very much.

Mr Davis sounds a very brave and inspirational person to be doing what he is ( I've hidden this next as it's a thought on hatred groups which I had but not having experienced such groups I didn't want it to trigger or hurt those that have )

Spoiler:  

and it also seems interesting in that I've wondered if being faced with the real faces of the people they hate as stereotypes might change some haters ( though not all ) minds.
I've gone over saying that last part a few times as I realise what for me is just theory is, for others here, a very harsh reality. I'm not meaning that certain groups and what they do are any less nasty and destructive, I just mean that I can imagine how facing the real goodness of a person could stop some people in their tracks.

[Anon100]

Mr Davis sounds a very brave and inspirational person to be doing what he is

The spoiler thought being in regards to the things Mr Davis has done