Friday, August 13, 2010

"It only hurts when I poke it."

There are a lot of blogs out there. Blogs are easy to start, fairly painless to maintain, and we all get to feel like we have a few moments of fame every once in a while. Moms, especially, seem to be drawn to blogging as a way to create and maintain adult relationships and have an outlet that is easily accessible from home, at any time. And, as you can tell by my list of blogs on the sidebar, I like to read others' blogs. But there are a couple of blogs that I know of that I do not enjoy reading, yet I find myself reading them once every few months, anyways. For some reason, I can't stay away permanently. I made the mistake of spending a few minutes on two such blogs about a week and a half ago, and I ended up with a really unpleasant sensation for a good part of the afternoon. Irritation mixed with disbelief,mixed with, I dunno, probably a bit of superiority thrown in that I'm not like that person, whatever my flaws might be. (You'd think that superiority would give it a positive twinge, but it's true that no form of pride really makes us feel better.) So, why do I do it?

For some reason, although I know that there are all types of people in this world, with different experiences and their own versions of reality, I tend to approach most people with the assumption that they see life fairly similarly to the way I do. This generally works, as I don't have occasion to spend much time in diverse or new company. But sometimes, I get THE SMACKDOWN. I'm made painfully aware that, NOPE, there are a number of people who see the world vastly different than I do. Sometimes I'm okay with that, and sometimes, it results in the above mentioned experience and sensation. I'm not one to go around looking for battles or things to gripe about, so I tend to shake it off and move on. After all, it's not like I have to LIVE with those people! So why do I revisit these blogs that make me want to throw things?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, now that you have peaked my curiosity... at least I know you aren't referring to my blog.;)

Blue said...

was it mine?

David said...

Just be grateful you take your bad medicine in small infrequent doses. If we watched tv we might become addicted to the news, which makes sure to give you "moral" indigestion hourly. Then they can sell you self-congratulatory-bismol by the bucket loads.

mindy said...

R&R, I'll have to share them with you sometime. Or maybe not. That's just mean to share the pain.

Blue, no, it's not you, silly! :o)

David, very true.

Mary said...

I am also in the process of discovering that not everyone shares my viewpoint or even my way of handling life, including relatives and good friends. Along with that discovery, I'm trying to understand why I'm attracted to these people and I'm learning to appreciate where they are coming from. You are one of those people that I find interesting because your approach to some things is different than mine, and I see value in your opinions and what you do. Now that I know there are plenty of takes on life that differ subtly or drastically from mine, I'm trying to expose myself to those ideas more to glean the goodness in them. For example, I now tune my radio to NPR every so often so I can hear dialog that is usually missing from the conservative shows I enjoy.

I haven't reached the glutton-for-punishment stage yet; I hope to just stay in an open-minded learning stage and improve the mental sifter that I use to form my own opinions.

mindy said...

Ah, Mary, thank you. That is a much better way of looking at things. Maybe I can reposition my paradigm a bit, and look for the good. I don't recall having been so negatively affected by these particular blogs in the past, so maybe it was just the wrong day to peruse them.

Well said. Thank you for sharing.