Meaning in the Mundane {25}: Damn you, Medium!

I am not a community person. I used to be — there was a time when I always had a group of ten or twenty kids that I ran around with. Always misfits — writers, musicians, in our too colorful or all black outfits, underground music, and bizarre behavior — we set ourselves against the status quo and reveled in the belief that we were above, or at least beyond, what those “other” groups were like. We were more compassionate, less clique-y, just generally better. We were activists and creators, not mere followers.

Except we weren’t better. Our tight little group imploded, and I don’t speak to any of them now.

This pattern has repeated itself over and over — I find a group, let my heart get involved in spite of all the red flags and warnings and icky gut feelings telling me to run for the cover of my safe little living room and private journal, and then wind up here, wondering whether I should just give it up. Again.

But the thing is (here’s the thing…), the thing is is that I love people. I don’t want to be around them (distance make the heart grow fonder), I want my space and clean air and no traffic, but I love people. I love all people. I want all people to feel safe and happy. It’s naive, but it’s simply how my heart and mind work — always have. And groups always seem to divide in an attempt to conquer. There’s always the Piggy (remember Lord of the Flies?), and Piggy needs to go down for the strength of the group. And I can’t deal with that. In particular, I can’t deal with it because we should* be better than that.

So, today, I say to Medium, “Damn you. Damn you for making me trust a group again. Damn you for making me care about people who I can’t reach. Damn you for creating a forum where so much honesty can lead to so much pain because groupthink is a real thing and it will always, always happen and it will always, always be bad. And damn you, so hard, for reminding me how fucking important it is to trust, and reach. Because with all of the crap this week has brought, all of the anger and the pain and the intense desire to run away, there has been connection, support, and a lot of beautiful fucking writing. Which is why I’m here. Still.”

*This will be a follow up post someday when I feel like editing it. We have massive frontal cortices and millions of neurons with billions of connections. We can and should be able to do better.