I've been thinking...

DISCLAIMER: The ‘YOU’ in this note is not referring to any particular person, but to the readers as a whole, but mainly just the ones who apply to the circumstances to follow. If you are one of the readers who didn’t like my previous note, you probably won’t like this one either. Who knows though, maybe it will finally make sense to you. There are two people excused from this note, you know who you are. I've told you I appreciated your stance, and I mean that. I'm not directing this at you.

I’ve been thinking—more than usual. This was caused by the recent surge of hate mail regarding my note titled “#59 - Post-Mortem Facebooking”, and the requests to take it down. The debate I had internally had proposed that taking it down would appease the angry readers, but at what cost? Basically, I needed to weigh the pros and cons, and see if the greater crime was leaving it up and hurting some people’s feelings, or taking it down. Here’s what I’ve come up with: (This can also be used as a lesson in logic for those of you who suck at it.)

Taking it down:

A few people will like that I did it, but I don’t know why. Are they afraid if I leave it up they will be forced to keep reading it over and over again? Will me taking it down remove the sting from the first time they read it? I think neither of those outcomes is likely. Instead, I think they will feel a satisfaction from me taking it down. It will appear as though I agree I was wrong, and therefore they must be correct, which I am OK with doing, provided I am either proven wrong, or realise my own error. The only other possible pro a person could argue for taking it down, would be to prevent people who haven’t read it yet from being offended, and it was in that realisation that I realised what I was going to do.

Leaving it up:

The pros of leaving it up are simple—the note does what it is supposed to do. I explained what I wanted in the note, and leaving it up will continue a minor enforcement of that request. I do not want to be notified of someone’s death by signing into MSN, and I want people to think more deeply about the way they do things. You know, LIKE I’M DOING RIGHT NOW! Is it too hard to think a bit deeper about things? It’s like that expression, “You are over thinking this” or “You are too analytical”. Those are the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. There is no answer that too much thinking will make it harder to find, and you can never be too analytical. It’s that kind of mentality that has caused EVERY problem the world as ever experienced.

So, I’m going to leave it up. I’m not worried about whether future people will be offended, because I’ve been diligent about that, hence the disclaimers.

Then I wrote, “Your R.I.P. displays names—mainly the ones on MSN—are an embarrassment. In January of 2008, I wrote a note called ‘R.I.P. Display Names’, and this month I touched on them among other things in #56 - Facebook Names & Groups (to which there was an overwhelming response). I wasn’t too aggressive in my responses to your comments, and let it slide. Unfortunately, however, due to a very sad and recent death, I was reminded how wrong you guys truly are. I am not going to be gentle, so prepare yourselves.” If you were sensitive to that subject and don’t like getting your feelings hurt, perhaps that would be a good time to, I don’t know, STOP READING! I don’t control your eyeballs. I’m not forcing you to do anything. I put notes up, the rest is up to you. If you read them because you are a fan, well I thank you, feel free to tell me what type of notes you enjoy, and which you don’t, and I will try and keep the readers happy.

The ironic part is most of the hate mail was prefaced with the sentences, “I don’t really know you” or “I don’t usually read your notes” or “I’ve never really cared about your other notes” etc. So, why do you care now all of a sudden? Is your opinion supposed to be valuable? I’d like to think if you started reading my notes from the beginning, you would have learned quite quickly whether I was someone you enjoyed reading, and may have never gotten to my 56th note. But I suppose that would require a bit of ‘over thinking’ to come to that conclusion.

Now, let’s talk about getting hurt. Since I was nowhere near you when you read my note, I’m going to assume you mean emotional pain—in other words, I hurt your feelings. Keeping that in mind, I’d like to explore a new word that may not be in many angry reader’s vocabularies: 'objectivity'. According to Merriam-Webster, objectivity is defined as: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.

Not ONE of you has provided an objective rebuttal to my note. As I said earlier, if you proved me wrong, or convinced me I was erroneous, I would take down the note. Telling me the note is wrong because your feelings are hurt, is NOT objective, NOT a good argument, and therefore NOT going to cut it. Why? Because I’m an asshole, right? NO, because those are the rules of MY blog. My blog is about thinking. I want you to think about how you do things, about trivial things in everyday life. The only way I can truly show you how stupid something is to explain it objectively. I write notes that are completely subjective sometimes, where I say I like cheese, but those notes don’t ‘offend’ you. You are only ever offended by the objective ones, which INSTANTLY means you are being emotional and not objective thus defeating the whole purpose for reading my notes in the first place.

If you are confused after that last paragraph, and can’t keep up with how backward the logic behind the complaints is, these notes are not for you. I’m sure there are pretty pictures on Facebook somewhere you can stare at.

Now, I can already predict all the possible responses you could make to this note, and because I have time, I will knock them out before you even bring them up.

1.    “I’m just stubborn” (Yes, I am. Any questions?)

2.    “I write these notes to seek attention just like the people who post R.I.P., so I’m a hypocrite.” (No, I don’t. I write these notes to change your views on things. If the world changed because of me, but no one knew I was responsible for it, I would be perfectly happy with that. My personal feelings are not relevant.)

3.    “I’m an asshole. I’m cold. I’m heartless. Etc.” (You don’t know me; stop pretending you do because you read my notes on Facebook. Again, it’s called objectivity; it only seems cold if you are putting your own feelings into it. In REAL LIFE, outside of your Facebook shroud, I’m actually a really happy-go-lucky guy.)

4.    “I should write about things that are positive, instead of negative things.” (I do, read my notes. Maybe you should stop only reading things that make you upset.)

5.    “You have or will lose friends because of this.” (No, I won’t. Trust me, my friends are smart, can understand logic, and usually agree with me. That’s why they are my friends. The people I could possibly ‘lose’ from this are not people I will miss.

Getting back to the original note, I think anyone who was offended by it, wasn’t able to grasp what was said in the note. Most of my points were flawless. The main argument you guys are trying to sell to me is that writing those R.I.P. things are your way of dealing with things, yet you’ve failed horrible in providing any support for that claim. It’s just another one of those sweeping comments; like “God said so” “It’s in The Bible”, etc, as a defence for religion. I’m not going to get into a religious debate, but my point is, when you resort to those you are claiming defeat. When you tell me something is ‘just your way of dealing with it’ I lose respect for the argument. Maybe my way of dealing with things involves burning down schools. Will my defence in court be, “It was just my way of dealing with things, your honour”? Now you are thinking, “wow that’s ridiculous”, and you know what?—that’s exactly what I was thinking to your excuse.

I think you should be able to find other ways of dealing with things that doesn’t involve me finding out a friend of mine died by signing into MSN, but maybe that would be ‘over thinking’.

Secondly, use your words properly. If you use the phrase, “Rest in Peace”, think about what it means, and if you are using it properly. Posting it on MSN is not using it properly. As I said, the deceased person isn’t signing into MSN to read it, and if they were THEY WOULDN’T BE RESTING. That alone should be enough to convince you, you are wrong. If it doesn’t, I really can’t help you. There is probably not many rational thoughts in your brain. It just doesn't make any sense. Why do you think they write it on tombstones? Because that is where the person is supposed to be RESTING. There is no logic behind writing it on MSN, unless you actually think they can read it. That will be good enough for me, just say the words, "Gerald, I think they can read it." I will leave you alone, I PROMISE! But I still don't want to find out they died that way, have some consideration.

Finally, let’s talk about death. Why is it you can ramble on about all the Jews killed in one of the greatest human atrocities of all time, and you can talk about shooting terrorists, killing the Taliban, etc. without being offended, but then you get all sensitive when someone says something even slightly negative about how to handle the death of a person you know that died. Am I the only person that can remain objective about death? As cold as it may sound, we all die, and we aren’t special. Billions of people have come and gone over the years, it’s what happens to living things. I believe in eulogizing the deceased, and I’ve said nothing negative about a single person who has passed, just your way of dealing with it. What makes you so special that your way of doing this isn’t open for scrutiny? Is death a subject we aren’t allowed to talk about? No, that’s not the case, you’ve just set a double standard; it’s only bad to talk about when it involves you.

Someone asked me what I would have done if someone told me I was dealing with my mother’s death the wrong way.  I can answer that easily, because I can remove the hypothetical aspect of the question. People did say that too me, and I responded the same way I would to any subject. I let them explain themselves, tried to explain my take on it to the best of my ability, smiled, and moved on. I was actually accused of getting over it ‘too quickly’. I’d like to think that was just another result of really thinking about things. As I said earlier, all problems are caused by not thinking about things enough. I spent the first week after her death just really analysing the hell out of it, I made peace with it, and I moved on. Maybe you should stop ‘under thinking’.

Please spare me an inbox message filled with back-handed comments, and telling me you didn’t like my note. I get it, you don’t like me. I’m happy for you. However, feel free to comment or message me with an objective opinion concerning my thoughts. I’d be more than happy to properly discuss anything I write about. Otherwise you will just bring more pain upon yourself. I mean, hell, because of the limited thought put into this in the first place, we went from one note you don't like to two.

I’m curious to know how many people saw this note, scrolled down, saw how long it was, and decided not to read it. That would be a perfect example of the mental-laziness of people. For those of you who did read it all, kudos.

Oh, and if we are no longer friends, can you let me know, I’d hate to lose sleep wondering.
Lastly, to those who are tired of this topic, worry not; my next note will be A LOT more upbeat. I hate beating the proverbial horse as much as you do, but sometimes people need a reality check. (To be honest, I was really hoping this note would cause at least one head to literally explode—that would be cool.)

Have you ever tried to telepathically communicate with an animal and be convinced it worked?

-Gerald A. Dinkel (He just says things.)

http://sardonicconnection.blogspot.com/2009/03/61-removing-56-objectivity-beyond.html