Philosophical contemplation of wank.

*restrains self, just barely, after counting to appx. six thousand and sitting through a day of Rosh Hashanah services, from spewing vitriol all over anax*

This is possibly a bit incoherent, and stuffed mostly with half-baked theories on social shit, which is something I didn't think two figs about until the girlfriend started discussing such things with me. Yet, even after trying not to have anything to say on the whole matter for an entire day, I still do. Sigh.

Having a veritable lynch mob called in on somebody one considers a friend is never comfortable, but there's already been enough personal whinging, I doubt you need any more from me. More than anything, really, it's gotten me contemplating an interesting [to me] series of questions concerning social morality. I am by nature a very forgiving and accepting person; I make it a point of honor, in fact. I stay and stay happily in relationships that general consensus would probably have that I leave, because I believe that happiness in friendship and friendliness in people are not something we should expect to have out of the box, but which we make. People who consider weakness and compromise sins would probably consider me a spineless victim, but nobody's perfect, everybody's constantly learning and growing, and I believe in doing as little harm as possible. And the people I stay with are generally better for it, in the long run.

In short, live, let live, and try to do no harm.

(The things that usually do scare me off, on the other paw, are outright aggression, callousness, and cruelty, which is why I treat anax (and a few others in this fandom) about the same way one might treat a very large, very talented, very short-tempered bull: with a lot of respect and admiration from afar, but never daring to get very close, and constantly afraid that one might be wearing a red sweater.)

I'm also not big on punishment. I think it's pointless if somebody's repented and changed their ways, because the repentance itself was their hard road; and I think it's equally pointless if somebody is incorrigible, since punishment means nothing then, unless it's brutal enough to break somebody into shape by sheer negative conditioning, in which case it's cruel and undesirable. (I'm also, naturally, an idealist.) Punishment is like the SATs, the standardization of atonement; it serves no purpose but vindication. (Well, except in the bedroom, but like many things, that's a different story.)

(Can you tell it's that time of year? My language, my language... -.-)

I don't want to leave a friend unless they directly cause me serious pain, because I don't want to cause them the pain of leaving unecessarily. (Also I like to keep those few people I actually do feel some connection to and care for, because I lose enough friends through passivity and introversion as is; also, all other things being equal, I'm usually nervous about change, and have a heap of anxieties still left from my own social shock therapy by sudden and brutal group abandonment.) Yet that seems to be the accepted punishment: you're a bad person, so I dump you. That's how people do things, right? And yet isn't that just adding more negativity to that person's life, decreasing the chance that they'll grow into something better? And what if that person hadn't done anything to you, personally? But what if that person had hurt one of your other friends--are you then supposed to ditch the first to save the feelings of the other, or ditch the first to save the other from thinking you're a bad person for still associating with the first and thus hurting you, or ditch the second for the sake of trying to help the first, or walk the tightrope of keeping both at once, or, or...? Or if that person had hurt several who you aren't as close to but respect as people? Or? Or?

And people wonder why I never wanted to go to middle school. *melodramatic sigh* The whole thing really just makes me sick. But, of course, life couldn't be easy.

All this also leaves me in a very bad position purely personally, but that's far and away from the contemplation. I don't want to abandon a friend, yet the whole mess is insinuating; I find myself double-checking everything she says like an inquisitor, even though I don't mean to, and then feeling shitty about it. I also find myself wondering whether the Cool Kids of the fandom will consider me, too, outcast, if I remain friends with the target of such a witch hunt; I find myself wondering whether this might somehow damage my own tenuous social standing in the fandom minefield; and I find myself kicking myself for having such selfish thoughts. (Yet this fandom, cliqueish as it is, constantly raises such questions.)

And, of course, there's still the red sweater syndrome. It's very difficult to speak up at all with someone as brutal as Pride looming to tear apart your every word. And, hey, nothing like mob violence to instill a little paranoia. Yes, I'm a shameless coward. But I take care of people much better than I do battle for them, and I'm not a fighter, just a writer looking for a little companionship. I'd rather be forcibly snuggled than ripped to pieces. Choices, choices. But if you can't respect those choices, or think less of me for them, I consider that your problem, no matter how smart you are or how much I respect you. I am who and what I am.

( Cut for further wank. )

*goes off to try to finish her tentacleporn to counterbalance the wank*