Yeah, That's It

Strange skeletal movements are happening so I figure it's time to quit. Got a good bit done that I wanted done. I was gonna go finish the bedroom but that's on Friday's list too, so no big deal. It's so friggin humid that the new carpet flattened out by itself.

A lot of things going on around me these days have a common denominator: really bad communication skills. So bad that the ones who make sense in whatever particular mess is happening aren't even being heard. It seems the ignoring is worse among those in power who feel like martyrs. And there's a good deal of blindness towards one's own behaviour all over the place. Sometimes those on the same "side" snipe at each other. Killing your own happens a lot in a new group, I've noticed. People in the same cause who don't know each other are likely to find things they don't like as they work together (I'm at one of those points myself). And there are those who just have to be different, and piss everyone off in the process.

Like anything else, these are opportunities to learn a lot if you listen. Everyone can grow here. I've never been part of anything, even the school newspapers, that didn't involve fights and power struggles. There's drama. It's like family. Except they aren't your family and they may be worse. Still, it can come together if people are willing to work it out. Some people can't or won't handle the drama of these growth steps and walk away. That's their choice but it solves nothing except for that person who quits.

What all of these situations need is priorities, commitment and perspective. The cause is and has to be everyone's first priority. I've worked with people who were indispensable to the purpose but pieces of filth as humans. I didn't have to love them, but I did have to listen to them. Commitment comes with the priority, if it doesn't then there's no priority. Maybe perspective comes with experience. Don't think I had much til a few years into activism. When you see things over and over you don't react urgently. You lose an emotional investment in what happens in the moment cuz you know nothing lasts.

Emotions run higher at this time of year, too. Everyone is stressed on top of normal stresses. Maybe we all need to just calm down. As long as nobody's dead, everything is fixable, I always say.