Re: OT/ Sins of the Past

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On Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:16:11 -0700, "Tiger Lily" <me@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>you are full of *** Tom and you know that you
>have been offensive since day one when you arrived
>here as copulator

G'day G'day Tiger Lily,

I have taken the trouble to Google
copulator diabetes 2001.

My impression of Tom when he first arrived was that he was surprised
that he had offended people with his nick. My opinion then and now is
that it was more a product of a naive attempt at being clever and was
NOT intended to offend. Blame it on Tom having lived in an environment
where porn was accepted ... or blame my interpretation on my naivety.
It doesn't matter much.

Something else that comes through loud and clear is the amount of
caring support given to him. Also it comes through loud a clear that
he was very upset and frightened by the diagnosis and genuinely
appreciated the support that was given to him in those first days.

In those halcyon days Tom and the regulars were amazingly pleasant and
understanding of one another. He wasn't treated differently from other
newbies.

The "nick" was something some people found perfectly OK. At least one
found it was a title they could not bring themselves to use. A
request was politely made for him to change his nick and he did so ...
all in good humour.

>google doesn't lie........... but you sure think you can

Unfortunately it now seems to be the case that Tom thinks he can and
that we are too dumb to detect it. Mixed in with it, though, there is
some truth. Tom was a scared frightened newbie as he frequently tells
us. He was afraid he would die. Several people took went out of
their way to reassure that T2 diabetes was not a death sentence and
that they had been scared when given the diagnosis but had survived.

>go suffer........ maybe the ADA will pay for your funeral

That wasn't nice. My guess is you are fed up of Tom's behaviour.
Fair enough. However repeating that phrase isn't helping. As it
happens I think the phrase was originally meant rhetorically ie that
the writer thought the advice given by the ADA was more likely to
increase morbidity than to reduce it and they should bear the costs if
he followed their advice. IMHO it was pretty stupid thing to say in
the circumstances. Never the less it was said, and said I believe
with the best intentions in the world, protecting Tom from perceived
harm. I say perceived harm because intentions are like that. People
form their intentions based on their world view, in this case probably
some form of carbohydrate restriction. Tom has never recognised that
and probably never will now that he and others have compounded the
aggravation of the situation at every turn.

>like WE care........ NOT

Well some of us have cared and still do.

I'm including a post I made in 2003 in which I tried to help Tom let
go of the past and move on. It is now 2005.

As I look back on it I feel somewhat embarrassed.
It was well meant and meaningful to ME. I doubt many understood it.

I have included it because I'd like to say that it behoves us all to
pace what we write to suit the background, education, temperament etc
of the person we intend should benefit from our posts.

Quentin Grady
Aug 10 2003, 9:09 pm show options

Newsgroups: alt.support.diabetes
From: Quentin Grady <quen...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> - Find messages by this
author
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 19:35:59 +1200
Local: Sun, Aug 10 2003 8:35 pm
Subject: An open letter to Sushi/Shadow
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G'day G'day Sushi,

This isn't an easy post to make. I'd like to help you find a better
future than the past you have been having. You might not want a
better future and be happy with how events have been turning out.
Only you can say.

You came to asd with anxieties relating to diabetes. Some things were
said that upset you. Clearly you felt hurt perhaps even violated by
those comments. There is a saying that the meaning of the message is
the response it receives. The response you made clearly showed how
you felt about that message at that time. Given different resources
you might well have responded differently. Who knows? We shall never
know. Your response got a further response, this time from your former
internet provider. The meaning they attached to your response cost
you by your own account $1600. Meaning is taking on a life of its
own.


How could it have turned out differently? That's not so easy to see,
though there might have been away. Humour me a while I explain a few
things that may help you now or in the future. Some people hold fast
to a dictum that "People have positive intentions, perhaps only for
themselves, not matter how badly they express it."


Following your outburst, many people will have difficulty accepting
that was true. I don't. Let's step through it.


1. You felt hurt.
2. You wanted to let people know just how hurt you felt.
3. You didn't want people to hurt you like that again.


Now most people if push comes to shove don't want people to hurt them
and if they do they don't want them to do it again. At the level of
intentions most people would have the same desired outcomes. Even a
masochist doesn't want to be hurt. Sure they are into pain as a form
of pleasure but there is more than a little understanding to be gained
from the joke, "How does a sadist hurt a masochist?"
Answer, "By not inflicting pain on them."


Different strokes for different folks. Same intentions IF we follow
the intentions to higher levels.


Backtracking a bit.


The question still remains how to handle situations where people get
caught in tit for tat exchanges.


Bolzano's infinite oscillating series.


An Austrian priest Bernard Bolzano shortly before his death in 1848
became absorbed with the meaning of infinity. His thoughts were
published posthumously in Paradoxes of the Infinite.


S = a-a+a-a+a-a+a ...


The ... means blah, blah, blah,


a = virtuous
-a = sinful.


S = (a-a) + (a-a) + (a-a) + (a-a) + ...
S = 0


By the rules of arithmetic the bits in brackets are processed first.


or


S = a - (a-a) - (a-a) -(a-a) ...
S = a


Now this is weird. A series of events could appear as a wash, as
Judge Judy would say with good and bad deeds canceling out or as
virtuous.


Since the series is infinite we could lose some at the beginning.


S = ... -a + (a-a) + (a-a) + ...


The same event could also appear as sinful all depending on the
perceived starting point.


Did "it" start when someone posted something that offended you?


Hardly.


Did it start when you were diagnosed with diabetes by someone in the
medical profession and didn't receive adequate reassurance. (You have
often remarked on how scared you were.)


Hardly.


Did it start when, as you seem to be implying in one of your posts,
you took drugs that might possibly have brought about diabetic
symptoms?


Hardly.


Taking illicit drugs isn't something that just happens spontaneously.
The details are really so unimportant. The path you have been taking
was arrived at from other paths you have followed.


Is there a way to avoid Bolzano's oscillating infinite series of right
and wrong?


S = a - a + a - a + a - a + a ...


Let change our perception of the series and look at what is called the
absolute value. This is one heck of choice.


S = |a| + |-a| + |a| + |-a| + ...


S = a + a + a + a + ...


One can do this if one looks not at the action but at the level of
intentions. What happens if that post that pushed your buttons is
viewed in that way? You didn't like what the person said. You
strongly disapproved of the action but what if you decide arbitrarily
that they had a positive intention. They might have, they might not.
It is a decision.


Let's say they just woke and felt like hurting some one. You happened
along and walked into their gun sights. So they let you have it.
(This isn't how many people will see it but it may well have felt as
arbitrary to you.) Now why would they do that? Because at some level
they hoped to feel better by doing it.


Let's say they had some other agenda, perhaps protecting others
(including or excluding you), from possible harm. Now protecting
people from harm is a positive intention.


If you indulge me a little and run a little movie imagining that you
had responded saying something to the effect that you ASSUMED the
other person had a positive intention but their methods sure as heck
weren't helping. Isn't there a possibility that, that movie would
have had a better ending. It may in such circumstances be comforting
to know that most people on the internet have attention spans akin to
that of a one-legged chicken in a hurricane so people soon forget
unless things are said that make it worth people searching the
archives.

Best wishes, hoping you find a future that works better for you.

--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
New Zealand, >#,#< [
/ \ /\
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin
.

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