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Submitted by Sarah on Fri, 11/03/2006 - 9:46am.
If you don't do ____, you have blood on your hands. Your beliefs, your actions or lack of actions mean that you have blood on your hands.
» This whole blood on your hands bit is an example of an idiom which are also often referred to as figures of speech. This particular idiom has made the rounds of OlyBlog recently and I want to address it now. Using this idiom never serves to calm down a debate or put anyone else at ease. It can be used as an attack and a way to blame another. I've never heard it used successfully to positively motivate someone to change either. At least in my experience, when I feel blamed and judged, I'm not in a great place for any type of learning and healthy growth. One of the useful keys of conflict resolution is to use "I messages": When making “I” statements it’s important to avoid put-downs, guilt-trips, sarcasm, or negative body language. We need to come from a place inside that’s non-combative and willing to compromise. A key credo in conflict resolution is, “It’s us against the problem, not us against each other.” “I messages” enable us to convey this. When someone tells me "I feel like I have blood on my hands." (and this has happened to me), I then have something to work with, I am not being attacked. They are expressing their experience and feelings. We can talk. Accuse me of having blood on my hands and we go nowhere really fast. Tell me I have blood on my hands and I want you to back away pronto, get out of my face. I know when the passionate stuff of our life hits us and even overwhelms us, it is hard to think straight and keep good boundaries. None of us are perfect, I'm certainly not, but the more we can remember to describe our experience rather than jump all over someone else and assume we know anything about them, the better.
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Nice thread Sarah!
Submitted by Norm on Fri, 11/03/2006 - 11:10am.Bravo
Submitted by OlyCop on Fri, 11/03/2006 - 1:59pm.Very well said, and I agree 100%
"The strongest reason to retain the right to keep and bear arms is to protect against tyranny in government." Thomas Jefferson.
Ditto!"If you're robbing a
Submitted by OperaGirl on Fri, 11/03/2006 - 3:04pm.Ditto!
"If you're robbing a bank and you're pants fall down, I think it's okay to laugh and to let the hostages laugh too, because, come on, life is funny."
What if it is not a figure
Submitted by Mike on Fri, 11/03/2006 - 7:05pm.I have said in another thread that I think we have blood on our hands. I did not mean that as an idiom like "kick the bucket" means to die. I wrote the phrase with the concrete meaning and I used it first in the "our" collective hands sense.
I would point out (without any disturbing graphics as evidence) that US soldiers, weapons, bombs are literally spilling the blood of many people today, not an idiom. People who have had nothing to do with any insult or attack against the US and who want absolutely nothing to do with us are being killed. No idiom, no kicking the bucket, they are bleeding and dying.
I appreciate the sensitivities of those who here who can't stand to even look at a picture of such a thing, but I think I must object when my concrete use of language, not idiom, is similarly sanitized.
Is it necessary that we sanitize the war in Iraq to ourselves by asserting that the blood of Iraqi children is an idiom?
Let's Talk
Submitted by Sarah on Fri, 11/03/2006 - 9:49pm.I personally understand that people are dying. I understand that war is hell. I believe that the US should not be in Iraq. I understand that extremely traumatic events are occuring. I understand that human blood and guts are being spilled.
I do not believe this is an issue of who "can't stand" to face a picture of such events, who can't stand to face the reality of war.
I am by no means sanitizing anything whatsoever. I am standing up for my personal rights and boundaries. You, nor anyone else, has the right to insist that any of us deal with trauma in any particular way. I would never ever do that to you.
Some of us cannot immerse ourselves in trauma every minute of every day. Usually because we've experienced more than enough and we do what we can to stay alive and as sane as possible. When I decide to not look at a image for instance of actual death and blood, I am by no means being weak or ignorant or blind. I am making my own choices for my own sanity.
Allowing others to define me, to claim that I am something I am not, serves no one. Not even the dead of the world.
Each of us carry our burdens and understanding of the world according to our own choices, circumstances, history, and beliefs. I am no less of a caring compassionate woman for the fact that I am determined to define my own self.
You or anyone else can have any opinion desired, anything can be said. Just as I and anyone else have the right to set boundaries and self-determination.
Ultimately I believe that it is abusive for me to insist that another person define themselves a particular way, experience the world a particular way, because bottom line is: that is none of my business. I'd do better to work to be a role model of a person doing the best that I can.
Our sensitivities and preferences are not a sign of weakness. And again, I firmly believe that I should not lash out, disrespect boundaries, and define another person. How I grieve, how I cope, how I get through each day is mine to define.
I do not have blood on my hands. If you think you see this on me, you are not seeing me. I personally do best to not immerse myself in graphic depictions of violence. If you believe this means I am trying to sanitize things, that I am too sensitive, that I don't understand that War is Hell........well, you or anyone else can just go ahead and think that. But you are not seeing me or anyone else you incorrectly define.
Each of us deals with what we are given in our own fashion. We are speaking about TRAUMA here Mike. Trauma. There are many ways that people find to survive trauma. None of them are wrong. I personally wish you could hear me, Rob, and others. I wish you would focus on what you experience yourself, tell us your experience.
Tell me that my hands are covered in blood because I'm not doing X,Y, and Z and you know what? The conversation is over, there is no room for sharing or communication. Tell me how you feel, what your experiences are, what your nightmares are, then you invite in shared discussion and mutual support.
I am not your enemy. None of us here are. I encourage you to wrestle with your own demons and leave ours to us.
I feel that when someone
Submitted by Mike on Fri, 11/03/2006 - 10:59pm.And I am shocked and really discouraged that folks who have progressive and kind impulses aren't seeing this kind of juxtaposition of images/meanings with some real revulsion and speaking about it.
Do you follow any part of that, Sarah?
Oh boy, you'd LOVE the gifts
Submitted by Norm on Fri, 11/03/2006 - 11:52pm.Norm,
Submitted by Rob Richards on Sat, 11/04/2006 - 12:46am."Living is never a single person's own affair." – Huo Yuanjia
None. Even in wartime my
Submitted by Norm on Sat, 11/04/2006 - 9:48am.Yes, but do I need to point
Submitted by Mike on Sat, 11/04/2006 - 7:59am.But Mike, really, who are
Submitted by Norm on Sat, 11/04/2006 - 9:45am.Listening
Submitted by Sarah on Sat, 11/04/2006 - 8:53am.Who are we to judge? Really, who are we? I'm not talking about having opinions, applying discernment, setting our own personal priorities, making our own choices. I'm talking about the kind of judgement which is inappropriate, boundary crossing, and eventually abusive. Who are we to judge?
Sure, I may not like someone's choice. I may not understand those choices and actions. But I am not the judge of all. I don't know everything that goes into making that person who they are.
When I don't know something, that space can be uncomfortable and frustrating, but I would much rather live in not-knowing land than in judge-of-the-world land.
Boundaries are a good thing.
If I put myself in your shoes Mike, and I know I cannot, I cannot claim to know anything about your experience, I ideally would focus on what I am going through. If I believe that most everyone around me is asleep, is hypocritical, and blasphemous........I have work to do. On my perceptions and life.
If I have the overwhelming urge to communicate what I see as truth to others, if I begin to feel like a Cassandra - a prophet no one is listening to - I really need to check myself. Because life is a wonderful blend of infinite layers and cycles and combinations and possibilities. I want to experience that wonder and not only see through the blurred lenses of judgement and pain.
This world and what humanity does to humanity is f*cking soul searing painful at times, often, in fact always if that is where a person lives on any level. The possibility of healing includes not only acknowledging that fact, it includes those of us who are able finding our own footing in our community with clear boundaries and clear understanding that no one single one of us can do it all.
The weight of the world is not on the shoulders of any one person.
Eventually it isn't about the guns, the rate of graphic photo views, the keeping of scores. It is how we treat each other as fellow humans here on this planet.
I am not the judge. I do not carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I have the right to boundaries and self-determination. I don't know everything and never will. I don't like or agree with everything and never will. Immersing myself in the pit of hell on purpose and shouting out that everyone else needs to join me and suffer would definitely mean, for me personally, that I'm not doing well and need to work on finding balance and stability.
How does another person practice their faith or way of living? None of my business, unless they are actually truly harming others and using their faith as a shield against getting called out about it.
I am not a god, I am not a judge, I am not better than anyone else.
Remember, OlyBlog is not the whole world. Remember that no single one of us has to do it all, no single one of us can do it all or should. Remember that each individual one of us really has no clue what the other people are doing, thinking, struggling with, or where they come from.
Define me, judge me, accuse me of not behaving up to your standards........and the door to communication and understanding really cannot open. The interaction becomes all about attack and counter attack. Tell me about you, your understanding of yourself in the world, your hopes and dreams and pain......I and others can hear that. We can talk.
The master of twist
Submitted by OlyCop on Sat, 11/04/2006 - 6:01pm.I planned to sit this thread out and let others spar with Mike. But I was feeling like the guy sitting at the dinner table while everyone talked about him like he wasn't there.
For the most part Mike, I won't engage you in debate anymore. You twist things, and make judgemental comments, and even name call. Many of the things being said by others here are right on the money. You should read and contemplate the message(s) they are sending you.
As far as the post that has insensed you so much, the Christmas wish list, that was made for a different purpose than any true list. Bubbaz was kind enough to teach this old guy how to link things. It was my first attempt to use that new skill. I wasn't really asking for the Barrett for Christmas. Nor was I trying to commercialize the day we celebrate Christ's birth. And for you to take an innocent post like this and cast judgement on me as a Christian is very un-Christ like.
Finally, when you talk about things you know nothing or very little about, you look foolish. The Barrett is no more sniper rifle than a .30-06 hunting rifle, or for that matter a .22 long rifle. I enjoy extreme distant shooting sports, precision shooting. I shoot out to ranges of 1200-1500 yards currently. The Barrett is like the king of long distant shooting. It is capable of being very accurate at over 3000 yards. Shooting at those distances is at an extreme level of skill. And to be successful and even competitive at those distances is the pinnacle of the long distant shooter. And really no different than a kid that tries to perfect his shooting skill from outside the 3 point line in basketball. Can a Barrett be used for evil deeds? Yup, but so can LOTS of things, even a kitchen butcher knife. You don't have one of those in your house do you?
I could go on, and had other points to make, but I'm really bored with you Mike. I'm going to go watch The Proposition, since enpen gave it a good review. Good luck to you Mike.
"The strongest reason to retain the right to keep and bear arms is to protect against tyranny in government." Thomas Jefferson.