There's been a lot of name calling and accusations flung around here lately.
There have been taunts of racism, of mental illness, of substance abuse. People have been told they're liars because they deny the things they've been accused of, and threads have disintegrated into name calling and flame fests.
The thing that amuses me about all of it is that none of us really know each other. We all show parts of ourselves here that we want others to see. Some of us show more than others, being as honest and as open about ourselves as we can - even to the point of shame and disgrace.
Some of us feel so inadequate in our own skins that we embellish and fabricate scenarios and circumstances. Still more of us choose to reveal as little about ourselves as possible, showing only glimpses of the person behind the screen name.
We don't really know each other, yet some of us claim they can tell what's in our hearts, what emotions and secrets lie there. They seem to think that by reading words written on a computer screen they know us intimately, they can see our desires and our true selves. They loudly proclaim that they know the truth, they can see us for what we really are and that what we really are is horrible. That we're racists, bigots, adulterers and adultresses, child molestors, liars, thieves and layabouts who sponge off the welfare and disability system. We're poor excuses for human beings, they crow, and we ought to be ashamed of ourselves.
The thing that they don't seem to get is that they don't know us. They don't know me, to be more specific. They don't live with me, they don't interact with me daily, they don't sleep with me at night and shower with me in the morning. They've never seen me naked, they've never stayed up all night talking with me, they haven't held my hand as I pushed out babies, they don't even know how I take my coffee in the morning.....they've never even heard my voice on the end of a telephone line.
Yet they 'know' me, and they know me better than I know myself.
There are two people in this world who really, truly know what lies in my heart - and I'm one of them.
To thine own self be true, and fuck everyone else.
Remember that, JU.
