Pissing People Off

For the Insecure Writers post, our fearless Ninja Leader Alex wrote a thoughtful piece on alienating people, and fear of losing friends.

I recently finished George Carlin’s memoir, “Last Words.” A major theme was how he broke away from the conformity of the status quo. He is abrasive, and proud of it, and he made a good living at it. There are plenty of Blogs that also get abrasive and offensive, and are very popular.

In the Blogging circles I frequent, however, we’re pretty nice. Even when asked, I find it hard to be critical of other Bloggers’ writing. But there have been instances where I’ve read posts where political opinions just rub me the wrong way. In such cases, I’ll put my two cents in, but respectfully. I am figuratively in their house, after all.

On the other hand, in my own space, I’m tempted to go-off on some political stuff sometimes. That wasn’t the purpose I had on setting up the Blog, so I usually don’t, but I sometimes think that something is important enough to bring up. This could get offensive, and of course, I want people to like me. But I think that people (and Society at large) can grow from needing to face difficult questions. Half a century ago, some difficult questions were being raised about Civil Rights, and a LOT of people were upset by this. Many died in this struggle, but now, there a are a lot fewer people against these rights, and there have been generations who treat Blacks, Hispanics, Homosexuals and Women the same as themselves. We have a long way to go, but celebrating the progress helps us progress further.

The big take-away message from the George Carlin book, for me, was how important it is to be genuine. Is it more important for me to be genuinely provocative, or supportive? Honestly, I think that unity should be the end-game, but without provocation, we tend to stagnate. I guess that it’s all about time-and-place. I’m thinking that I should keep this yardstick handy, and to keep in mind that being phony will make me miserable.