New meeting track, continuing meetings while Seleras is out..

cheers all, it was great filling in for seleras while she was out of town and trying out a new discussion track. i've decided not to continue, not entirely because of, but decidedly now that i hear there has been some negative feedback.

frankly, i've got one of two things on the horizon:

(a) a great job opportunity which should keep me busy for years to come.

(b) a project which will keep me busy until, well, it's behind schedule quite frankly.

here's my feedback for the group, newcomers and old alike..

(a) peel away your assumptions and expectations of who other people should be, and just try to be the best yourself you can.

(b) if you're the dude who was probably cheating on his wife and got pissed because all thirty or so people in the discussion were convinced you were doing this and arguing fiercely that it was ethical because doom isn't classified as murder, stop cheating on your wife. buy her some flowers.

(c) don't try to reach a fucking conclusion two minutes into the discussion, and if you've reached a conclusion you are satisfied with, leave everyone else to discuss.

(d) if at least one other person staunchly disagrees with you, stop asserting that they are an idiot and begin exploring what it is that you disagree about.

don't be an asshole because SL doesn't have a way of notifying the group more than 15 minutes in advance, and don't threaten to make an abuse report to linden when the host asks you to kindly keep your bitching to yourself and out of group chat.

(f) if you don't *actually* have anything to say, and that makes you want to leave, please do.

I won't actually even be at any of the future meetings. I'd rather go to Church or the little clubhouse where AA kids hang out. I feel like a crash-test dummy, and I'm actually a bit put off from SL altogether. Every one of these meetings made me want to kill myself.

After the experience of hosting these meetings, I'm even a bit insulted that Selaras asked me to without more of a warning. I can't afford the kind of weed I would need to smoke to be bombarded like that.

.. And to think, I wanted to be her friend. If I wanted someone to be my friend, I would not ask them to host the freaking Ethics meetings. No way.

The truth is, Selaras, although at first I said I felt there was a lot to gain from these discussions, because everyone grows, it's not true. I've just done too much damned Acid. A lot of people grow, and I felt myself growing through the course of a few discussions, but most people want to assert the belief they already have, and I'm not a very old man, but I have better things to do with my life than listen to them one by one, breaking up the religious wars, and being told that it is unethical of me to ask people to be polite on the mother fucking group list.

I think you should disband the whole damned group.

...and no, there's no sarcasim there. It's refreshing to get some honest feedback on our behaviour -- particularly when I happe to agree with a fair amount of it. Sometimes I sit back after a meeting and review my own experience of what went on...and see my self shining through..shadows and all (do my shadows shine?).

Who got under my skin? and why? At what point did I get bored with the discussion? What was happening then? Who am I happy to see come into the room...and who do I try to ignore? Do I feel a need for more structure? Less freewheeling tangents? When do I prefer to follow the tangent and ignore the topic? When do I start feeling overwhelmed...and was it just the number of folks talking at once, or was it the emotional tone of the discussion at that moment?

I get so much more than a discussion of ethics from these meetings. I get a look into myself as well.

Justizin, I appreciate your willingess to take over for Selaras..and I regret that the experience was so miserable. I never will understand why some folks think they are owed by everyone else....or that they have rights in a group that no one else does. The sheer laziness of mind that is shown by folks who just blast someone, instead of actually THINKING about what the issue is for them, just amazes me. I once worked for a boss who told me "you can always complain about something...but make sure you have a suggestion to correct it when you do. It doesn't have to be the correct solution, but you must show that you have thought beyond complaining". If only we could enforce that on folks who think being represented by an avatar frees them from resonsibility for the content and effect of their speech...<grins knowing the odds of this>. Ah well...

With shadow side shining through,
anya daligdig