Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax

Sometimes you have to ease the suffering of others by blocking them so they can’t be offended by what you say.

If you are of an obsessive and sensitive frame of mind — mea culpa — participating in a forum such as Twitter can put stresses on your psyche akin to those placed on your body by participating in a dance marathon. Round and round you go, answering every remark sent your way. But just as the winner of a sixty nine hour stint complained of the sensation of always having a man’s arm around her, so, too, do I get to feeling that I’m just not up for dealing with every remark that comes my way. In the cases of some, I can say the word and they back away. In others, I find that the best thing to do is to completely sever ties — to block them from reading any contribution I make to any conversation. I can’t hear them, they can’t hear me. It’s similar to enforcing a protocol for comments on a blog or choosing whose blog you read. I see no moral deficiency in doing this.

Ah, but some will insist that I have an obligation to hear out everything every person has to say. I must be open to criticism. I agree that a little good criticism dispensed to the purpose of easing my anger or other type of suffering is a good thing. But implying that I am an asshole or that my experiences count for nothing and therefore I have nothing valid to say is not something I would say — except in the rare moment of grumpiness brought on usually by Santa Ana Winds — to any other. Nor is it anything except painful to me. So as I would do to others, I expect the same to be done unto me.

There’s a right I uphold for everyone: to choose who they can include in their circles. Note the word “can”. I am not included in every circle and I do not expect to be included in every circle. It would not do for me to tell others to block others from hearing them. Likewise I do not take serious formulae which expect that I have to take everything.

In this I may be brutal except in that I may not publically humilitate the bastards. If others have strength to cope, then I envy their power, but I do not place the same expectation on myself. It is some people’s rule that everyone can have a hearing. It is not a policy of mine to let other person’s limits be my own nor to impose mine on others. I know where I chafe: I will apply what salves and guards I need to keep me on the floor.