The Scotto Grotto (org)

Lovely morning walk… the sun was shining, birds singing, and I wasn’t easily winded.

It’s come to my attention that I really haven’t posted much prose or poetry lately, and that I need to get back on that path, as well as others.

Thinking about spirituality lately, what I’d like to attain, where I’d like to be.

I would like to be more kind, more loving, and more trusting. I try to be nice to everyone…but I don’t deal well with people who are in my opinion consistently cruel, thoughtless, disloyal or vulgar. That’s a lot of people to have a problem with. Well, let’s narrow it down. I don’t deal well with people who are like that with me or my friends.

Lately, I’ve encountered that sort of stuff in a lot of different places. Work, LJ, and much of the rest of meatspace and cyberspace too. That’s one reason I don’t visit IRC unless I know a friend will be there. I Don’t play AOK online, generally, unless I know a buddy will be there… it’s not worth wading through the literally hundreds of socially retarded (I mean it. the growth there is literally hampered. they need to get out, go camping or something) folks that seem to wreck it for everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong… I know a *lot* of sweet folks online, and off. I’ve no problem with them. Sadly, they seem to be in the vast minority in public forums.

So, the question remains. How do I treat those that are less than kind with kindness? I don’t want to become condescending, but it seems that my approach of “they don’t know any better” or “they have a lot of anger” or “that’s just ignorant” or “they’re that needy for attention” all seem to be a little bit so. I don’t want to put on airs of superiority, I want to fix the situation…but it seems as if that’s not always possible. I know I’m not a superman, and it’s not my job to fix everything, but I have a very real drive to want to help folks, especially those who are so visibly broken.

I’ve had friends in the past that I wanted to help, but they didn’t want it. That’s a hard situation to be in. I’ve been friends with a lot of different sorts of people. Some Vulgar terms for them might be Adulterers, Amoral People, Liars, Bastards, Finks ,Snobs, Thieves, and Whores, some of whom fill more than one category. (Whee, alphabetical order!) I cut them some slack, because I thought I could help. I’ve since learned that sometimes I can’t help, and I shake them loose. Sometimes with an argument, sometimes they shake me loose, and I don’t pursue. (to any of the above that I’m still friends with… I still care about you, I just really dislike that aspect of your personality, and I wish that you’d cut it out, with or without my help.)

I went to get past my triage mentality of helping. An economy of kindness isn’t what I want to be a part of. I want to dish it out wholesale.