Know-It-Alls and Forget-Me-Nots

 I decided to block a bunch of people from my social media; anyone, 'friends' or not, who came on my feed and showed themselves in offensive or perpetually supercilious commentary in community pages or the pages of my friends/family. I've done it before, sure, people who were directly negative to me; but this time, blocking the profiles of people who are generally nasty online is a whole new way of letting loose and reining in. A buoyancy in my demeanour was obvious afterwards, and I knew it was the right thing to do.

In the past, I felt it was important to sometimes engage with these kinds of commentators; try to have a conversation, try to understand where they were coming from, try to share another point of view. There's no more trying, I'm done. Why bother? Outsiders have become alleged insiders, thinking they know me better than I do, through a very narrow lens at that. It seems certain people have become little targets, not sure why; social media is for sharing our views, but it also attracts the worst of intentions, moths to a flame as they say. When too many moths are flying around a flame, the light dims. So, intentional irrelevance of this destructive moth mentality is what I'm focusing on. Out of sight, out of mind. I don't need to involve myself in the fracas; a frenzy of rights and wrongs, good and bad, rumour and reality. I can still respect others without having to see or hear them in my small and continually curated social media world - This realization is new. It was important for me to engage because I thought, all things being equal, everyone deserves to be respected and heard - but all things are not equal, some people are just jerks when a time presents itself.

Social media is like a digital wild-west, or a dingy back alley just off the main street of brightly benign online behaviour - and that's fine, I won't pretend life is or should be all sweetness and light. And, I don't mind excursions into dim realities to cast some light on what's happening there for my own illumination, but I need a quick exit route to safeguard my spiritual sanity.

When people don't listen to others, think they have all the answers, refuse to admit mistakes, air condescending intelligence, and throw quick judgements, it's just not worth my while to resist or try to hold up the brilliance of others like protest signs. The know-it-alls can take the stage, push their way through to appeal to swooning fanatics; I won't be there to fall in line, or argue, or take a back seat - I simply won't be there at all. Any whiff of hubris will be blocked.

The forget-me-nots will continue to grow near streams of gratitude and awareness, tuition and intuition. They will always be there, ready to be looked at for leadership without angry and adversarial opinion and opposition. When the fanfare of know-it-alls wane and I don't see anyone else hoisting themselves onto self-centered stages, the forget-me-nots will be there with genuine hope and generous messaging. The individuals of humble discernment, their perseverance through the dumb din, I look forward to their renewed presence on my social feed as the lights that make the real world a better place.

 


 


 

 

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