I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allen Poe

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
-Bertrand Russell

What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
-James Branch Cabell

July 23, 2013 - 11:59 p.m.

Why We Build the Wall

I'm being bold. I'm writing a thought entry instead of a what did I do today entry. It might also be my second edition of the day. Of course it is really a way of avoiding scary emails. Which should not be scary. We are talking the Budgiedome one of the best things in my life. There is an irony as I could use some of what I'm about to write about.

Make believe your computer screen is filled with wiggly lines now as we are going to a flashback. We are going back to the last millennium, the year 2000. Carey and I had met on the FHDC wall, That was sort of like a chat room where Fruheads could talk in real time. Often late at night we'd find ourselves the only ones there and we'd just talk one on one. We'd often discuss the drama and problems in our lives. We soon moved it to more private venues, AIM, private chats, and the phone. But the name for the talks remained walling. And that's what I'm here to talk about, walling.

Carey isn't the only one that I wall with, I've walled with others of My Gentle Readers, but she was the first one I did it on a regular basis with and together without any deliberate action came up with the name. So what makes a conversation walling?

Someone tells his or her problem.
The other person listens, and listens, and oh, listens.
The other person never says, "you're being silly." The reality of the problem is taken as a given.
The other person is always on your side.
The other person doesn't say, "you should have done this or that."
The teller doesn't have to go to great lengths to be understood.
The other person brings up things he or she will know will make the other person smile.
Mostly the other person gives perspective and reminds the teller of what's important, often without actually saying anything on that point.
There's lots of hugs, virtual when you aren't in the same room.
There are lots of jokes, usually bad.
Both people plot imaginary revenge when appropriate.
There's talk of pie.
Chocolate finds its way in too.
Somehow a cake finds its way in when I talk to Carey.
The cake isn't about eating but I'd have to kill you if I told you what it was about.

The teller can talk about how someone they care about is annoying them in full confidence that the other person knows it doesn't mean they don't love the person and the other person won't hold it against the person being complained about. Nobody can annoy us like the people we care the most about.

Sometimes it's about distracting the teller and changing the subject to something totally inconsequential but fascinating.

Mostly the other person gives perspective and reminds the teller of what's important, often without actually saying anything on that point. In the end nothing might be resolved but the teller know that the other person cares enough to have listened to it all. That's a treasure.



I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.





Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018



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Horvendile July 23, 2013
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