The One Notebook Principle

Alright, so I don’t ever want to make this blog political in any way, shape, or form. Trust me, I’ve been tempted, but have ultimately decided not to. It’s not what I want this blog to be about, for one, and also I just don’t want to invite that kind of discourse and traffic. So I won’t write about politics and, shockingly, it’s that simple.

I will never quite understand, at least not fully, the urge to comment or write about a topic in a nonproductive way, or in a way that isn’t supportive, constructive, or making a personal connection. People write on about the “anonymity of the internet” and human nature but honestly I think it’s just a choice. I might think whatever I want in my head but I can decide not to write it down and, perhaps more importantly, not to put it out in a public forum. My father used to say, and I’m sure he was quoting someone else, “You are the master of the words unspoken, once spoken they are master of you.”

I wrote a whole thing (before I was attempting to seriously blog) about not really being a sharer and then blogging anyway. I even posted it as a “From the Archives” post when I was setting up this blog. Ultimately, though, I think that sharing is part of being human. We want to be noticed, to feel important (or meaningful), and to make connections. This urge isn’t unique to the internet generations; I think it’s probably part of why newspapers run editorials and opinion pieces.

So sharing is human, but we all have brains which can decide whether something is worth sharing or not. A student of mine, from a few years ago, once told me that he could say whatever he wanted because “I have freedom of speech” and I replied that he also had to brain to think about it first–or something like that. He’s not alone in his sentiments though, as reading the comments section just about anywhere will demonstrate. Plenty of people seem to see freedom of speech as permission to be rude, to engage in bullying behavior, and to assert their own opinions over the right of others to have opinions.

Admittedly, my parents raised me to be polite and respectful. As such I go into every encounter, whether online or in person, with the idea that whoever I’m dealing with is due a minimum level of respect simply for being a person. It should be said that, judging by the reactions of those around me, my minimum level is apparently higher than some others’ level. One woman I used to work with even asked me why I was so nice to her. She seemed confused when my answer was “because I don’t have a reason not to be.”

I think sometimes we think that not saying something means being seen as having no opinion, or as having an opinion that agrees with whatever opinion has been shared, but I’m not sure that’s the case on the internet. Someone posting something from across the world has no idea whether I’m even reading what they wrote, never mind whether I’m tacitly agreeing with it or not. I can always reply or comment with “I don’t agree with this” or “I think differently because” (note: as a teacher I can tell you the second option is better), but the truth is that the original poster or commenter probably doesn’t care. They might even never see it, depending on how close a watch they keep on their own comments.

When I was little, about three or four years old, I had a simple way of dealing with adults and children I thought were being silly. Mostly, for adults, this meant that they baby talked (or slow talked) down to me. My parents didn’t do this and I always thought it was weird and insulting. Condescension is still one of my biggest pet peeves. I have a brain, thank you, and it even works. Anyway, my response was simple: I wouldn’t respond. To my parents’ relief, people just thought I was shy. The truth was that I was staring, judgmentally, at them with running commentary in my head about how ridiculous they sounded.

My reasons for not saying any of that commentary aloud are pretty similar to how I feel as a 38 year old adult. For one thing, saying all of that would just be unnecessarily rude, especially to a complete stranger. Perhaps I could have said, “Please talk to me like a functioning human capable of thought,” but those kinds of boundaries are things you’re better at navigating with a bit more life experience, I think. I also just didn’t understand why the person would need to me to say it. They were, to put it in an unflattering kind of way, unimportant. They would come into my life and they would leave it, pretty much as quickly as they entered it.

As a child, I had the luxury of not engaging and it’s a luxury I delight in online as well. If I think someone is being silly, ridiculous, mean, or what have you, I can just roll my eyes and move on with my life. The world doesn’t need to me to point out what people have so clearly demonstrated themselves. More to the point, the kind of argument that inevitably ends up as “you’re wrong, no you’re wrong” always reminds me of the pointless bickering my sister and I used to do as kids. It’s not going to solve anything, and neither of you are going to change your minds, so why are you wasting your time?

I keep waiting for this post to come naturally to its conclusion but, apparently, I have a lot to say about this topic. I am, however, at the point where I think I’ll mostly be repeating myself. I do that, at a certain point, when I’ve run out of new things to say but the emotion behind it is still going on inside me. Perhaps, ultimately, that’s the real reason some people comment, reply, and post online; the emotions they feel won’t let them not say something. That said, I still believe we can think about we say first, and notice when it’s no longer productive. So, at this point, I am going to follow my brain, which is telling me that to say more would be unproductive, and stop writing here (even though it feels super abrupt).