Every so often I get really tempted to create a complete alternative on-line persona. FB page, pictures, history, maybe a blog. Join a bunch of BBSs.
The persona would be a grumpy old man, not really experienced in martial arts but with a lot of questions. I would name this person "Ed Gruberman." For those who don't know, here's a link to the song, "Boot to the Head" by the Frantics. Ed Gruberman plays a leading role.
I won't do it. I don't have time. I barely have time to be myself, much less somebody else. I've had to give up BBSs, don't write here as much as I could or should... blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Whining. Sorry. I guess it's good to whine about being too busy doing things I enjoy.
Anyway, I have rules about how I interact. It boils down to: As much as possible, I want to deal with people who are thinking clearly. Which means it rarely serves my purposes to evoke an emotional reaction. I do sometimes, and I say what I believe and I step on toes... but I try never to do that just to do it. Martial arts is really close to a religion for many people. It fulfills some huge identity needs. It can also feed delusion. Hit that directly and people stop listening, stop thinking...and I don't learn nothing.
Doing it this way, I learn a lot. But my evil streak doesn't get fed. Ed could fix that.
"Really? I'm amazed! A Pan-Am medalist in an odd odd numbered year? I didn't even know that was possible!"
"I've been crunching the numbers and if an event had, say, one thousand gold medalists and five hundred silver medalists, doesn't that mean that five hundred of the divisions had only one contestant? Are you bragging about that?"
Stuff like that. But it serves no purpose to be mean just to be mean. But sometimes I want to.More important, if I'm really concerned, as I say I am, with getting people to think for themselves, I don't serve my own purposes by shutting brains down...and invoking emotion does exactly that.