Thursday, April 15, 2021

Don't Take the Bait

 Restraint of Tongue, Pen and Keyboard is the philosophy I try my best to live, one day at a time.

I think the reason I struggle with it is that I usually welcome correction.  I try my best to listen and not pronounce but man, it is a struggle because I WANT to pronounce a lot, especially when I read or hear something that is lacking on its face.

Restraint of Tongue, Pen and Keyboard - it should be a bumper sticker, on a tee shirt and emblazoned across the sky.  Maybe it should be tattooed on the inside of my eyelids so I never forget. 

Reading statements by people on social media that are just, well, wrong - factually wrong or philosophically flawed or even just silly - tweaks my 'evangelist bone'.  However, the context in which the person is usually writing on Facebook or MeWe really does not invite discussion or criticism.  It is not about them stating something and then inviting a dialogue.  It is almost always self obsessed and.  It always ends in, "This is MY page and I have a right to say what I want and if you don't like it then just scroll on by" which is hardly conducive to a discussion.  AND, if (as I have done) one concedes that they might not be smart enough to follow the argument being made you can bet you will be taken to task for saying you just don't get what point they are trying to make.  

Restraint of Tongue, Pen and Keyboard - a motto by which many people could live and find peace. I don't adhere to it often enough.  I take 'the bait' and ask a question, make a point, respond in a way the other person would not agree with and KERBLAM the fight is on.  Not the argument or discussion - the fight.  And I will withdraw from that because that was not my intention in the first place.

I almost have learned to follow this advice.  Do not engage unless you know it is in a platform that allows for give and take without regret.  Let the people vent on Facebook, on MeWe or Twitter.  Do not get sucked in to an exchange fraught with sin.  

Restraint of Tongue, Pen and Keyboard - perhaps the title of the book I will write when I retire?

Which would, of course, be a title fraught with irony, yes?

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