(OK—three
things, since we’re busy.)
1. We all need help.
Why do we
have lists floating all over the internet, gently educating us on all the stuff we’re
not supposed to say to each other? It's true: We’re all a little tacky. We
actually do need to be taught some of
these things. Having read many of these internet
lists, I realize that at times I have been saying some of the very clichés that
people beg us to stop using.
In areas
that are particularly painful and personal—such as infertility, divorce, and
bereavement--a blog can do a world of good and spare someone the trouble of
having to look us in the eye and admit, “You’re killing me with your nosy
questions. Just. Stop.” Bloggers save us some grief. I can
think of at least three blogs already this year that have completely changed the way I
interact with people who are dealing with situations I have not personally
encountered. Why do people have to come
along and show us how it feels to be disabled, or lonely, or suffering? Because, without their education, most of us
do very poorly at empathy that requires us to think outside of our own natural
experience.
2. Some kooks out there are kookier than the rest of
us.
I once heard
of a guy who, within hours of a funeral, asked the widow what would become of
the deceased individual’s valuables.
Seriously?! Where do these people
come from? And how can we send them
back?
Here’s the
bad news, on the blogging front: Some
people don’t read blogs any better than they read body language. They just skip merrily through life, asking
personal questions, suffocating us with their nuclear-powered body odor, and answering
cell phones during our children’s weddings. It would be a waste of their giftedness to
read someone else’s ideas about convention.
After all, they already know
everything.
If blogging
helped, I would write a hundred blogs, starting with this one:
”Three
things to remember about showering: 1. Do
it. 2.
Every day. 3. With soap. “
But I’m also realistic
enough to know that the guy who is choking us to death with his fragrance,
sitting in Subway, leeching their Wifi in eight-hour shifts and watching
Netflix day in and day out, is not reading blogs about manners. Not gonna fix him—outside of a miraculous
accident involving a car wash jet spray and a gallon of Mr. Clean. Some problems are just here to stay.
3. We can over-analyze.
Fellow bloggers, may I tweak and crop a few of your lists just a teensy, weensy bit? We are listing, detailing, and evaluating everyone to death. Almost every single day, a new article pops up, sensitizing me with specific bullet points on what I am to say, and not to say, to every group I meet. Sometimes the bloggers themselves don’t agree on what I am supposed to do. Everything is getting so carefully scripted that it’s starting to feel more like a play, where I pose as Florence Nightengale, desperately trying to remember what I’ve been told to say for each situation. Sharing “from the heart” is getting engineered out of the whole sequence, and I’ve got so many lists floating in my head that I’m tempted at times to say nothing at all, lest I accidentally step into one of the many sayings I’ve been admonished not to say.
The Listing Phenomenon is not too different from what evolved with
wedding registries. Back when we were
kids, people got married, opened their gifts—and promptly owned 18
toasters. They spent most of their first
year tracking down department stores, making exchanges, or selling all their
gifts at garage sales so they could purchase milk and orange juice. Someone (presumably an executive at Target)
came up with the idea of “wedding registries,” where couples could sign up for
what they needed, and everyone else could buy accordingly. It actually worked pretty well at first.
I remember the first time I received a link to a wedding registry
that included sporting equipment. It
occurred to me then that we had officially witnessed “the shift”. Showering impoverished newlyweds with
necessities so they wouldn’t have to drink out of tin cans while they paid off
their honeymoon had somehow evolved into sponsorship of Parks and
Recreation. No, instead of wading
through a ten-page online listing for several stores,
I just send gift cards or checks, and let the honeymooners pick out
their own towels and tennis racquets. Or
toasters.
Like a wedding registry that is so detailed it renders itself
unusable, some of these internet lists leave us feeling overwhelmed enough to
give up trying to help each other out. When
we over-manage each other, with such deep analysis that no one can say anything
anymore without it being rigorously tested, we
strangle the very compassion we seek
I’m listening to your lists.
But please see my heart and forgive me if I mess up sometimes too. J
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