Sunsets and Seagulls/thinking aloud (10)

No writing today, baked bread and started on Christmassy things, feeling positively festive.
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Thinking aloud series starts here

The alternative title of this ‘thinking aloud’ series was 'It’s not all sunsets and seagulls you know.'  If you follow me at all you’ll know by now that my main interest in life is consciousness and its evolution.  That’s not easy to write about, slippery stuff.  It’s messy and often not pretty, it usually involves other people and situations, everything is grist to this mill.  So when I don’t say much or just blip beauty I can get to feeling a little duplicitous.  In person I’m a bit more like this.  So this is my attempt to be more open, albeit retrospectively and tortuously attempting to tell my story without exposing anyone else.  More of that presently.  For now just know that this is the sort of thing that goes on behind my posts, ‘though it is rare for me to be as stirred up as this, a growth spurt if you will.

So, I waited for a reply to my email asking for more detailed information.  Days passed and I  began to wonder what to do in the face of non-response ...  I knew I wasn’t done yet and considered putting the whole story on Blip, including my raw email (so you knew how I really felt) and the other emails with just the names omitted.  My friend told me this was A VERY BAD IDEA.  I wasn’t so sure.  This friend enquired into my motivation for doing this.  I thought it was something to do with being a bit more self-disclosing.

I saw a programme about four year olds in kindergarten play that really struck a chord.  One little girl did something that was unacceptable to another.  When the first wouldn’t apologise the second said “I’ll tell the teacher, my mummy, my daddy, my auntie, Father Christmas and ... the Tooth Fairy.”  Was that what was behind my desire to put the unexpurgated version out here?  To get some moral backup?  Maybe something of that, but also something about wanting you to know it’s NOT all sunsets and seagulls, and I know it can’t always be for you either.

When the reply came it opened with “I’m sorry if this has really upset you ...”  and ended with “I realise you are upset and I am very sorry about this.”   In between was a confirmation of my worst fears about what had been going on behind my back, and a list of other (mitigating) events going on in the person’s life when they sent the first email.  No sense of responsibility for what had happened.  Red rag, bull.  I posted this blip.  Revisited the notion of non-apology.  And, encouraged by someone who was involved in the actual situation locally (and incensed on my behalf), I began to think about what it meant to “give someone a piece of your mind.”

Another heartfelt and eloquent post on Blip's future, in case you don't follow this journal.