Cate wrote:...the posting of personal details about George’s life
made me feel uncomfortable.
You have done this before
and I think it crosses a line
and is more intrusive and threatening to people
than you perhaps realise.
I hope I never see the same thing done to me.
I wanted to defend George
and was genuine in lauding his courage
to post under his own name.
Dear Cate,
It did not occur to me at all before you said this that this was what you were referring to
back when you said "...thanks for bringing to my attention that George is a real human being ..." etc.
I had thought that you had simply come to see George in that rather peculiar light
-- as a human being
-- entire in contrast to my own
inhumanly patronizing behavior!
Which did seem a bit extreme to me at the time.
But it makes good sense now!
In my defense I want to say first that I
did think about it.
I
did ask myself, before doing it, if copying and pasting
those things might not be, or seem to be, a bit intrusive,
or threatening, or in bad taste.
It's just that I decided it wasn't.
Nevertheless the fact that I had to think about it at all
means that I know I could have been wrong.
Or at least I can understand how some people might think so.
I take all of your comments very seriously, Cate.
But I do not, as of the present moment,
think that I did anything wrong this time.
Or at least not anything so very-very-very-very wrong,
anyway.
Here's the way I thought about it at the time (and still do) - - -
1)
I did not say anything at all about George's personal life
that he didn't write himself, and publish publicly.
And it's not at all hard to find it on his page.
It's not like it's in small print or anything like that.
It is, in fact, the very first thing you'll notice there..
And it's a page that has been up for a very long time.
But most of all, it's a page that George himself
has linked to (or at least mentioned) in this very forum.
2)
Moreover, my reason for saying anything at all about George's
personal life was a very good one, morally speaking.
Or at least it was a reason that you yourself will have to accept,
Cate, because you yourself have said that you had the exact same motive:
"I wanted to defend George."
And that's what it was with me too. Originally.
The problem is that I edit my posts. Sometimes a lot.
Sometimes too much. Because sometimes the editing
breaks a line of thought, and I don't realize it,
but it drastically changes what I thought I had written.
And this may be one of those times.
Because I was just about to say that the only
reason I quoted anything at all about George's
personal life was in order to acquit him
of any potential suspicion about him
being a pedophile, or serial killer,
or whatever, such as likely results
from a superficial reading of his poem,
it being rather hard to see how
to read it any more "deeply" than
that. The simple truth being,
instead, that George is just going
through a "midlife crisis". And,
in particular, that he's divorced.
Perhaps recently.
The thing about that being that I remember
perfectly well having written some rather angry
sounding poems myself when I went through
my divorce. And so did my ex-wife. We both of us
tried to make them
sound as angry as we could.
Whereas in fact we were pretty good friends
throughout the whole proceedings. And afterwards.
And I think we still are. And yet neither of us
is a serial-killer. Or any of those other things.
So far as I know.
etc
Like I said, that's what I was going to say.
But I have now re-read that first post of mine
and I can see that that particular line of thought
pretty much got lost in the final cut.
And about that I am sorry.
However I do remember how it happened.
It was because I had just read a couple of George's
responses, which he posted after I had started my own post.
And they made me loose any and all desire to see
George acquitted of anything. At least temporarily.
And that's the problem with databases.
You can not let different people write simultaneously
to the same data store! Because if you do, then you
just get a mishmash, like
the fly.
In this particular case I was one person, a benevolent one,
when I first began writing that post. And then I became
a very different person, -a psycho-killer,- in the middle of it.
With the results that you saw.
~~
Cate,
I too remember when this sort of thing came up before between us.
I can't remember the details.
But I do remember that I got the impression that you thought
that I hadn't put any thought at all into whatever it was
I did that was so wrong, before I did it.
And I remember how very very very very wrong you were
about that.
I would of course be lying if I said that I had agonized over the decision.
But I did honestly put some thought into it. In fact a lot.
Much more than I had to this time. And much more than you
thought I did, I'm so sure!
It's just that, apparently, I happened to come to
a very different conclusion about it than you did.
Whatever it was.
I also remember that I wanted to explain to you
my decision making process about that particular
thing, whatever it was. And I remember that I
wanted to explain to you my decision making
processes in general about things like that
in general, whatever they are.
And I remember that I wrote a lot about it, whatever it was.
And I remember that I didn't finish it.
And now I can't remember if I posted or PMed
any of that at all.
I fear it all got quietly dropped off the face of universe,
as so much of that kind of stuff does.
And if that's the case, then it must have have seemed to you
that I didn't respond at all to any of your concerns back then.
And now I don't know how to proceed.
That is, I don't know if I should just say "I'm sorry" again,
and leave it at that.
Or else if you should say to me: "thank you, so very very much,
for not posting any that jive!"
and I should say "you're welcome"
and leave it at that.
======================================
As for Jack, I like him fine.
He does has a problem with me, though.
Which I never understood.
But let me try:
Jack's into mysticism, I'm into physics.
Jack's into Jesus as savior. I'm into the historical Jesus.
Jack's into Palestine cheering and Israel bashing.
Whereas I hate everybody over there.
Jack's into drawing things out -- stringing people along.
Whereas (- and I know you won't believe this!) - I idolize conciseness.
The connection with George is through shaggy-dog jokes.
With "stringing people out", if you prefer.
Michael got an awful lot of that from Jack.
Most of this the stuff I'm talking about is probably
from many years ago on the old news-group.
And yeah, I met Jack too.
I was in a pretty bad state at the time, for a number of reasons.
But some people have delighted in reminding me of a few
of the more pleasant moments I had back then.
Whereas Jack has delighted in trying to remind me of what
he thinks was the worst moment I had back then.
Which wasn't exactly what he thought it was.
But I think it's really strange the way he tried to use it.
In any case Jack can be rather catty, if you don't know.
And if you don't, then I guess I'm being catty for saying so!
I guess I miss Jack too.
Sort of.
But I'm pretty sure I'd get over it after a couple of his posts.
Let me put it this way. When he's into details he can be great.
When he's into mysticism, I want to wring his neck.
