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March 12th, 2009
![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) twistedchick | 12:16 pm
I am stepping back from writing for a while. Some of it is lack of energy, some is the conviction that what I say will not be heard and will make no difference. There are enough things keeping me busy offline that I think it's time to take a break for a while. I will still try to skim the flists, to keep up with friends and local folk and events, but that's all.
Some time ago I said I would do newsblogging up through the 2008 election; that's been done. Newsblogging, to the degree that I've done it for the last six or seven years, is intense. Much of the time I sat here and pulled links together and wrote for six or seven hours at a stretch in order to put a single long post together; during the campaigns and the political conventions, that became 10 to 12 hours some days. During the Republican Convention in NYC, when people were being arrested and thrown into whatever filthy brig was handy, I was online for 16 hours straight, connecting things, to get an idea of what was happening where and why. My health suffered because I wasn't getting a lot of exercise, and I'm paying for that now. I am just selfish enough to believe that taking care of myself at this point is more important than rebroadcasting the news. The links are out there; the news sources are in the posts and in the RSS feeds. If you want to look for them, they are there. If anyone wants to ask me where to find things -- in email, please -- I will respond.
In the last month, everyone in the house except Jenny has been ill, often several of us at once. It has taken a toll, and my level of energy is very low. It's time for me to do something else, something that will give me back energy instead of draining it away. This is not exile; I am in exile from some places, but the net isn't one of them.
I leave you with the agreements of the Alternatives to Violence Program, which has been used within prisons and many other places to help people listen to one another. These statements are what participants in the program agree to do when starting the work:
-- Affirm the good points in what is said.
-- Refrain from putdowns (of anyone, for anything, for any reason)
--Listen without interrupting. Don't speak for too long, or too often. One person speaks at a time. Use one microphone, or pass around a talking stick.
-- Volunteer yourself only.
-- Observe confidentiality.
-- You have the right to pass when it's your turn. You never have to speak.
In Quaker practice, one leaves some space for silence between what one person says and what the next person says. This is to allow time for the words to sink into the listeners' minds, so that each person listening can come to comprehension personally and relate what has been said to his or her own personal experience. It is a more meditative way of understanding others' words than a direct discussion; it allows for meaning to gather slowly as the pattern of speech emerges, as one person's message is layered over another's, without the need for external interpretation or explanation. In the beginning, before the word, was silence.
I'm passing the talking stick on now.
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