Sinister: There but for the grace of whatever...

[Michele Waggner]

I know I shouldn't have done anything to extend this discussion of the list
on the list, so if you have a reply, please send it privately to me.

Ah Sinister, settle down.  Again.  We've seen this before in the 2+ years
we've been together.  People come, people go, people write brilliantly and
people write shit, we spat and we hug and we utilize our delete keys when
it's something we aren't interested in.  Sinister imitates life -- no, it
*is* life in a lot of ways.  Which brings me to the point I'd like to risk
making.

I've always thought that it's a very lovely thing that people feel safe
enough, or valuable enough, to sit down (I picture them late at night) and
pour their hearts out on Sinister when there doesn't seem to be anyone else
around to listen to them.  That they feel people on the list will care about
them and they won't be alone with whatever is troubling them, at least in
the moment they're feeling so down at their keyboards.  I always thought it
spoke well for all of us that people could do that when they needed to.  No
matter if half or more of us were deleting after the first sentence.  At
least we did it silently, and some of us might have been touched and sent an
encouraging word along.

I know mailboxes get burdened awfully and I know people should think before
they write drivel.  I don't enjoy reading about or care about lots of things
like "what I did this weekend with my friends and what I wore" or "who can I
have a crush on/who will have a crush on me this week, go look and see how
great I am" or "I'm a poor penniless student with 25 papers to write."
Personally I'd like to hear more things that have some heart in them, or
beauty.  But some people do and I can make what I don't have any interest in
go away with one stroke of my finger like I throw out junk mail that comes
in the post.  I know people have indulged things that I have written here.
So, I wouldn't much think of telling anyone I don't care about their lives
because it seems mean if they want to talk about it.  It seems doubly mean
to tell someone who has poured out real and true sadness that they're pretty
much a pain in the ass.

Yes, everyone should think before they post, but sometimes the pain is
pretty big, I'd think, and needs a release.  Who can think then?  I find it
hard to begrudge that.

Too much of any one thing isn't good.  We're a diverse bunch.  We've got
lots of stories to tell.

I'd just like us to stay a place that's known as much for caring as for wit,
I guess is what I'm trying to say, without stepping on anyone's toes.

--michele





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