This morning I was reading some of the dialog for the first time on my ex-therapist's FB page, the dialog under the thread he started about me, describing me as being sadistic, terroristic, cyber-stalker, sex-propositioner, et al. (He is welcome to his opinions, but some things he states as fact are outright fabrications.) I have previously read a few snippets of the comments in the thread. I can only take it in small doses. Probably shouldn't even take any doses. But, at times when I'm feeling strong I can read a few words in some of the comments.
Elsewhere, someone recently brought up to me about what to do with my rage and anger. I'm not sure where they get the impression that I have much rage and anger. Perhaps they get it from reading what Knapp has written about me; ie: that I'm terroristic and sadistic and all those other labels alongside false allegations and accusations. Perhaps they've read a few of my pieces in which I mention or express rage and anger. But I think most of what I write is not laced with rage and anger...at least not to me.
Or maybe the person reads into what is written, or what they have heard. We all bring our projections with us and we each are responsible for managing our projections in given situations. To jump to conclusions based on our projections....well, we need to recognize that does happen and be open to considering other possibilities. (I think of something I've read in various cognitive exercises on 'mind reading'... like that a disturbed look on an audience member's face may have to do with some stomach issue and nothing to do with what is being said by the speaker.)
I've learned through the few years I've been on the internet that people don't read thoroughly. (I first posted on the internet in 2005, I think in December that year.) People come to conclusions based on cursory tidbits. Perhaps people have always been that way and the internet simply displays that trait in a more viewable manner.
And I get that we don't have time or energy to read all there is to read about situations/circumstances. We do the best we can with our accumulated life experiences and knowledge and then weigh various situations with what resources we are able to access and have energy to deal with. And some things just aren't important to us in our particular frame of life at a given time; other things are.
Some years back, I read in the book Margin by Richard Swenson, M.D., that "a single edition of the New York Times contains more information than a seventeenth-century Britisher would encounter in a lifetime." I don't know the accuracy of that statement, but I get the point. Information overload.
In the same book, Swenson gives a snippet history of the clock. As early as 200 BC, Plautus was cursing the sundial for hacking his day into pieces. The first mechanical clocks were introduced to the Western world in the 1200s. Minute and second hands came on board in the 1600s. And now we have nanoseconds and maybe beyond at this point.
I wonder what people would do if the internet crashed and the instant communication process went kapoof? We might have to go back to actually talking or writing a letter long hand.
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“The gods confound the man who first found out How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too, Who in this place set up a sun-dial, To cut and hack my days so wretchedly Into small portions” ~Plautus
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