Changing gears-

So, for the past six months or so I've been interacting with the stitcher's guild site. I started reading and posting there again after the election, when I was feeling so awful about our country and was desperate to be proven wrong about my worse fears about the people who voted for Trump. Spending time on a site where there was a lot of quilting, smocking, etc., seemed like a good place to start - these were somewhat "traditional" activities pursued by people I tended to respect when I'd interacted with them in the past. I hoped that it would be a space where people with different views would touch on topics of politics a bit, in a respectful manner that would actually help people understand eachother.

For the most part, that is what it was. But this week I decided that I need to step away. There were too many comments about Obama being a "shill" for various things, nasty things about Hilary, stuff that just was completely against the spirit of trying to understand eachother and our views rather than just getting onto teams and tearing at the other side. And each post like that would send me into a downward spiral where I'd think of responses, get upset, angry, etc. I finally responded this week in as respectful of a manner as I could, but it (no surprise) didn't make me feel better. So I decided that nothing would be helped by me going and reading the followups. I decided to just cut myself loose from that environment altogether.

It's too bad - we need to talk to and understand eachother. But I don't want to talk to an angry woman typing alone on her computer at night, and I definitely don't want to become that woman. I'm still left with a deeply dejected feeling whenever I realize how willing so many people are to just accept what is said by a bunch of unimaginably rich, angry white men, who made their money by being loud and angry. It seems so blindly stupid. And the fact that I feel that, that I still feel contempt for the people who listen to that stuff, is a pretty good sign that I'm not the person who should try to have an actual conversation with them.

It's the contempt that is truly bad, both for yourself and for society. It eats you up more than anything else, at least it is that way with me. It certainly doesn't help anything at all. So - I know that this means I'm going back into my little academic bubble. I'm going to try and engage more with people in my community rather than online - lots of people with wildly opposing views here!

In other news, I bought some linen. Because, summer.