First Against The Wall

I'm not an alarmist...but (unreputable way to begin a sentence) Is the treatment of Gaddafi at the hands of the mob a portent of what is to come for the tyrants of the West that produce nothing but wealth for themselves at the expense of everyone else? We produce jobs they say – I call bullshit, where they rule - unemployment is rife and these companies seem content to execute mass sackings to maximise their profit. Where are the shareholders with a conscience? Where is the Government of the people? Occupation of financial districts is the beginning and I hope and pray that this fight will not descend into bloodshed. But so much blood has already been shed for the God of greed and that’s why drawing a bow between Gaddafi and the heads of Wall St Type Players isn’t that far-fetched. They steal, they oppress and they are mad enough to believe they have a right to do so and that everyone will love them for doing so. Heed the warning, don’t find yourself cowering in a drainpipe, find a conscience.

You'd think that the whole 1% as opposed to the 99% issue would mean that garnering public support to see the 1% as the first against the wall wouldn't be so hard but the problem of greed goes deeper than that. On graphs I saw recently regarding the distribution of wealth in the U.S. 1% owned 40% of the wealth and if you stretched out to the top 5% you'd find 70% and to the top 20% you'd find 85-90% of the wealth. I find it disturbing that 80% of the people own 10-15% of the wealth. So my point is that the movement against the rich is not against 1%, it's against 20%. And judging by comments on news articles and opinion pieces it would seem that those on the side of the rich is greater even than that number. Is that because so many still believe that they can break into the top 20? Well with the gap between rich and poor widening, that is getting more and more out of reach and besides, why would you want to do that if you could only get to the top by climbing over others to get there? Or is it because people like the comfort of being ruled?

In Australia the differences are not as marked as they are in the U.S. But unless we support action to see real change the gap between rich and poor could grow here too. I don't want to discredit the slogan that is the 99%. It is a powerful argument and I'm encouraged to see that on October 29 there is a call for a global march to send a message to the upcoming G20 Summit in France. I like the synergy that is the 99% asking the 1% to pay a 1% robinhood tax on all financial transactions and currency trades. The robinhood tax claims that were this tax implemented it would raise over a trillion dollars and fund every social program and environmental initiative in the world. Is that asking too much? The 1% would have to be greedy evil bastards to shout this down would they not?

All these numbers are doing my head in. 

For more information go to http://robinhoodtax.org.au/

What Motivates You?

A mid last century musician Bill Dixon said “Fear is the greatest motivator”. It appears that civilisation agrees. Those with an urge to motivate others for whatever agenda they have often utilise fear to do so. We are delivered this almost daily in the political realm as we watch and listen and read through whatever medium we get our news from. They dole it out from their fear budget in small change that builds up over time. They place large bills of it in your palm as they smile and shake your hand and sometimes they write massive cheques that bounce when you try to cash them in, realising that children weren't being thrown overboard after all.

In the world of religion fear is a universal motivation. Fear God, and perhaps rightly so, but while you're at it also fear those who follow a different God or the same one only with a different name or a different understanding. Fear women who want to speak, or lead or show their ankles or god forbid, their faces. Fear homosexuality and gay marriage for they will turn us all gay and bring natural disasters down on our heads. Fear beards and funny hats and atheism, ethics classes and most of all scientists – those godless souls searching for a theory of everything. Do not allow people to use their own minds to come to their own conclusions on spirituality. Tremble so much that you will do all in your power to indoctrinate people into your belief system before they gain the ability to discern for themselves.

And it works! We all know fear, it is programmed deeply into us so that when we see a bear charging towards us we are motivated to our fight or flight response. Fear is natural, it gets our adrenaline pumping and readies us to do what needs to be done to survive. So there are times when being afraid is a good thing but is it healthy for us raised in this culture of fear to be so overly exposed to this emotion? It's like we have learnt to be addicted to it, we lap it up, we crave it, good news stories don't sell newspapers, we feed the monster that feeds off us. We have a list a mile long of things to be afraid of including stock market crashes, strangers, technology, too little clothing - too much, failure, success, young people, foods, how people see us and death etc. It's a booming market of relentless commercials telling us what we need to survive. With so much to be scared of, we surrender ourselves to being controlled because there is so much we feel need to be protected from.

I might say here that if you should fear anything, then fear fear, but it might be better to come at it from a different angle. I don't believe that fear is the greatest motivator. When we look back at the people that have shaped humanity and the great things that we have done I see another motivation at work. We went from having reds under the bed to being in bed with them at the crumbling of a wall and the world didn't go to the dogs. When Churchill delivered his famous speech he aroused something in people stronger than fear. When we went to the moon the whole world watched in united wonder. When the storm threatened to sink a fishing boat a man stood up and said “Don't be afraid, I am here.”

Those who have moved to occupy Wall St are not moved to action out of fear, they are angry and they believe in justice and compassion and without hope that they could make a difference why would they bother? Fear leads us to fight or to withdraw and while there are some things worth fighting for, some injustices that need to be cast out with great force, it is hope that something better will come of it that gives us the courage to overcome fear. Fear destroys and controls and leaves us cowering in a basement behind closed doors. Hope opens doors to something new, freeing us to be creative, hope is the greatest motivator.

We fear what we don't understand. Solution – come to understand what it is you fear which means coming with an open mind and not just latching onto the nearest loudmouthed potentially closed minded opinion. When they tell you the Carbon Tax or refugees will take away your job, Muslims will take over your culture or climate change will snuff us out, be skeptical, be humble, then learn. For our own good, education is so vital and learning how to learn and keep on learning is what will serve real progress for humanity.

When I look to recent leaders, when public support was high in getting someone elected it arose from hope instead of fear. Rudd and Obama won through to office on the wave of hope and while some of that hope may have been naïve and misplaced it exasperates me why so many still want to employ fear as the motivator while their public support nosedives. We can unite under hope but fear tends to divide us and tear us apart. And for those that fall to their knees in front of God, respect or honour is what God calls for, not twisted meanings that call for you to obey out of terror. If God is, then God is love. Is my greatest fear that hope will go missing? If so then I'd rather focus on hope, what do you hope for?

A Lesson in Ethics

Rev Fred Nile has been in the news a lot of late specifically with an agenda to ensure that Ethics classes don't become an option in schools for students to attend instead of going to Scripture classes. I'm not really one for defending Fred Nile because I often find his own ethics to be poorly lacking. I am a Christian and am actually rather uncomfortable with the concept of Scripture classes or R.E. Reason being that while some people deliver this subject with the best of intentions and some even deliver it with ethics the priority, for others their intention is to indoctrinate students to a belief or to try and save their souls from damnation. A noble thing if you believe that but hardly appropriate when dealing with impressionable and sometimes vulnerable young people.

I am also not comfortable with dismissing some form of ethical classes alltogether. If young people are impressionable and sometimes vulnerable we cannot leave their moral guidance to the media and fashion magazines. It needs to be addressed. Most teachers and parents (not all though) do this already to some extent and Ethics classes seem like a good way to build on that.

One issue I have with ethics classes is that we could end up with students choosing to go to ethics class or scripture class and that means we potentially set up the division in the playground between those that believe and those that don't before they even leave school. That division in the public forum at present is often filled with fear and loathing, is that the road we want to continue down?

How about bringing them together in a class that helps everyone understand where everyone is coming from. How about we call it a Values class that covers ethics and spirituality in a broad and informative way so that students could be encouraged towards making an independant decision on what beliefs (spiritual or humanistic) inform their ethical value set. By bringing them together and trusting them to take on information and make up their own minds instead of telling them what they should believe they can form their own view and learn to respect differing ones.

Students should be educated on where our ethics have come from and why people believe what they believe. Our beliefs and values are tied up with who we are and informs our choices and actions and consequences. That's my other issue with ethics classes, that ethics stem from our beliefs and you cannot cottonball someone from all the beliefs that are out there so please don't put ethics up as anti belief. You can however give young people some tools in trying to understand it all and trying to find their place in the great big melting pot of humanity.

The Collective Wisdom

I read an article on the opinion site 'The Punch' the other day that was discussing the failings of a right and a left wing perspective and the division and hatred that has been brewing between the camps. I too have been concerned with the growing bitterness that is dividing the nation. The author sort of summed up the differences by saying that 'At its most basic level it’s a battle between heart and head.' While that may be a generalisation and an over simplification of the make up of ones political leanings I think there is some truth in that statement.

On the battleground of the heart and head or the emotional and the rational insults are flung. Lefties are called bleeding hearts and can claim the high moral ground by pointing to the right wing's agenda as one of self interest or xenophobia or any other myriad of phobias that threaten the self interest. The conservative right can put down the left as self righteous communist radicals. On a leftist publication I saw someone say “I've always wondered if the reason people on the right apear loony is because they are all secretly a split personality. Democracy is by its very nature collectivist and the right are by their nature individualist. Therefore if you stick a group of people who's only cry is "me me me me me me me" into a room and expect them to discuss "us" they just lose the plot and go spontaneously bonkers.”

As much as I chuckled I think It's more complicated than that. I think a right perspective can be more personally an honest perspective whereas to have a left perspective you have to battle with your own selfish nature to hold everyone elses interests ahead of yours...does that make the lefties the ones with the split personality? Either way I'm not sure that any of this characterisation and character assasination is helpful, the fabric of our society is being worn thin with people treading over one another disrespectfully. Scientists and Economists are dismissed by one man who claims to know more than them all put together for example, but I digress.

Why are we choosing to be right or left at all, shouldn't every issue be addressed on its merits where an individual can come to an independent conclusion?

“At its most basic level it’s a battle between heart and head.”

To the ancient Hebrews wisdom was when the heart and the head worked together to evaluate and inform the worth of an idea or a decision. Maybe the most whole individuals are those with a bit of right and left in them...or failing that we should at least recognise that together we can have wisdom. I think we all want to see wise decisions being made so let’s meet in the middle, not let the middle be a warground. And we can have robust debate around it so long as robust isn't used as an excuse for offensive.

Rational vs Emotional...the answer isn't just somewhere inbetween, the answer is when you can say yes to both.

I think we are at our best when we are helping others and through doing that I've seen it to be the most effective way of helping yourself to be happy (not necessarilly rich though). Maybe that's the secret. To fulfill our self interest, to make us happy, we have to help others. Self interest is about winning but winning doesn't have to come at the cost of someone else losing. Even right wing folk understand win win situations, it is what an economy thrives on (that or oppressing others). But it has to be a global economy that thrives not a national one. National interest is self interest under another name and it too can have winners and losers or winners and winners.

Am I convinced by everything I say here...not sure...maybe I need a friend opposite me on the spectrum to debate respectfully with...who wants to be that friend?

No Flying Spaghetti Monsters

The atheist movement are mounting a campaign at the moment cos of the census to make sure people list 'no religion' cos they want to take religion out of politics. I agree with them to a point but beyond that point I almost don't have the heart to tell them that they've already succeeded due to the fact that we already have the seperation of church and state so that neither one can have power over the other. How far do they want to go? If you believe in the great flying spaghetti monster (no one believes in the great flying spaghetti monster) then you cannot hold a position in government – that seems very extreme and controlling. Others might as well start a campaign to remove atheism from politics, if we all succeed then we'll have done away with government forever, hooray!

The other disturbing campaign is the one that screams at you in CAPITAL letters to make darn sure that even if you don't call yourself a Christian you better mark down that you are or we will be overun by millions of Muslims and you can kiss our Easter parades and Christmas carols goodbye. I reckon Muslims probably get sick and tired of being blamed for political correctness gone mad when they are on the whole totally fine with others celebrating whatever religiousy stuff they want to celebrate. So for God's sake, if you believe in God, say so, if you don't, then state that, don't be a census troll. It's just a frikken census, nothing to get hysterical about. 
 
And why isn't there a question about sexuality, is data not helpful? The census is hardly an invasion of privacy because they destroy all the records after the raw data has been gathered. They say one concern is that those collecting the form especially in small towns could read it and invade someone's privacy, which would be illegal. Surely we could fix that with sealing the forms in an envelope that explodes when meddled with or something. One other concern might be that there would be a campaign from certain elements to encourage people to inflate the gay and lesbian number in an attempt to move things like the gay marriage debate along quicker.

I'd like to know the statistics on all manner of things and I'd like to trust that those statistics would be used to help meet the Australian people where they are at. And I'd like to trust that people would answer it honestly. I'm fairly certain that the 64% that put down Christian in the last census will be significantly lower this time around but that's ok as it will be an accurate reflection of where we are at. I guess the danger is that some people will use the statistics to oppress others but if the statistics aren't there they'd probably just make them up anyway. 
 
I wish it wasn't a religion question as I don't consider myself as belonging to religion (depends on your definition) I wish it were a question about belief but I will be putting down Christian because that best represents what they want to know if I don't want to get all uppity about the wording. If you don't believe in a God and if you feel 'no religion' best represents that then I'd encourage you to put that down. Religion, spiritual beliefs and atheism etc. are all here to stay and cannot be gotten rid of so live with it. I'll say it again, It's just a frikken census, they happen every 5 years, it's not big brother out to get you, there is nothing to get hysterical about.

from out of a tiny world

I was asked to contribute a piece on depression for Capril, http://capril.org/ a website and more that are out to raise awareness about depression through the wearing of capes.

As great a childhood as I had, looking back I think my story with depression began in my early teens. I was a sensitive boy, sensitive to social injustices; I remember crying at the sight of starving Ethiopians on the TV news. Finding joy only in fantasy I spent many hours reading alone. Brought up in Christian circles I eventually found myself disenchanted with all forms of religious expression, their faith didn't seem to help those that needed it most. While I never really stopped believing in God, I stopped living like I did. Went in search of meaning elsewhere and what I found was just more of a sense of despair. I didn't particularly like the world, society or myself. Slowly and sometimes with bigger leaps I fell into the grip of depression.

By my early twenties my depression manifested itself by preventing me from engaging socially with anyone, my housemates included. I would have anxiety attacks in crowds of people where people I knew were present. If I was entirely anonymous I was pretty much ok. It was the terror of knowing that someone could come at me from any angle and engage me in conversation. I had stuffed up my life and I was too scared to talk to anyone in case I influenced them to stuff up theirs. Dialogue with anyone was fraught with such danger, was too much responsibility for me to handle. While there is truth in looking at relationships that way, to let that stop you from having relationships is pretty irrational. Depression doesn't lend itself to logic though; it twists the truth and outright lies.

So I was numb, couldn't hold down a job for long and could hardly raise myself from my bed.

I remember clearly the morning I turned the corner from this road that was leading to a pit of nothingness.

A sunshower has just passed through and I am curled up on the couch looking out the window at glistening beads of water dripping from the leaves of a small tree. I am in awe as I study the tree, marvelling at this living thing that at slower than a snail’s pace will eventually soak up that water in its roots and will deliver nutrients up its solid trunk and through its branches. I can see some beauty in amongst my self-imposed bleakness.

It was in that moment that I decided I didn't want to live as a depressed person anymore. And I think that is an important thing, it didn't free me of depression but I had decided that I didn't want be defined by it anymore.

Years followed, years on medication, frenzied periods of creating art, moving interstate to be with my family, enrolling in study, going through times of doubt and anger, being with my father when he died, rediscovering my faith, falling in love, getting married, getting a job. There was no quick fix but I found myself on a journey out of the darkness and by accepting challenges that I thought were beyond me I grew. I grew in my confidence and I grew in my ability and my self-awareness to stay above the hands that wanted to drag me down.

I had been trained as a youth worker and then people thought I should become a High School Chaplain because I'd be perfect for it. It was daunting to the extreme, the responsibility and even to just have the title of Chaplain. I felt so inadequate. I accepted the job. I think it was more perfect for me than me for it because I had to rise to something bigger than myself. I've come to believe that helping others is the most effective way of helping yourself. Depression is like being locked in a tiny world that only you inhabit, and in that place you don't like you very much. I just love the symmetry, the feedback loop that is created when we help each other that it helps us and that it exponentially can create a better world.

Five years on, still a Chaplain where I have to listen to others and encourage them, where I have to meet others often in a place of hurt and need. And when someone is sharing their pain with me they usually don't need me to bring mine to the table as well. I think that by having to leave my darkness at the door it gets easier to leave it further behind. So I find myself in a place where anything I say or do could influence the person across from me and while that still scares me it challenges me to do my best and I'm ok with that.

I guess I found healing in doing what frightened me the most. Never entirely healed, I can sort of feel depression lurking in the corner of my mind like it's just out of my peripheral vision. It's there and if I end up spending too much time on my own, if I surrender to my natural inclination to be a reclusive hermit it pays me a visit and I know it's time to turn to being creative and to being sociable (choosing to do the things that are therapeutic to me) if I want it to go away. I am thankful there is meaning to my existence, thankful for my work, my friends and family and most of all my wife for providing me with an encouraging, challenging and supportive foundation to build a life worth living on.

The Cultural Cringe

Released today: A majority of Australians worry about muslim immigration http://www.news.com.au/national/essential-research-poll-finds-almost-60-per-cent-of-aussies-worry-about-muslim-immigration/story-e6frfkvr-1226013688143

Australia – who are we? Even in my lifetime I feel that I have witnessed a gradual but significant shift in the culture of this nation. It's as difficult to define what I attribute that to as it is to define what is our culture. I've had it defined to me in a way that I resonate with that culture is shared symbols of meaning. A flag is as much a symbol as is the notion of a fair go. It only becomes cultural when a group of people have a shared consciousness around that symbol. Does imposing a symbol lead to a shared understanding or is that indoctrination?

A lot of people have been claiming of late (both in Australia and around the world) that multi culturalism doesn't work. They often referance the cultural differences in races and religions that are incompatible to our mainstream culture (which is still not clearly defined). For the sake of this opinion piece I would say that multi culturalism extends beyond race and religion, we have gay culture, bogan culture, geek culture and myriad other subcultures that dot the landscape of our society.

I remember being part of a subculture in my youth. It was great in that it gave me something to belong to (and we all need something to belong to). It was great in that it gave me a way to define who I was and what I stood for. In retrospect it sort of sucked in that I didn't consider anyone's opinion from outside that subculture as being relevant. I knew better, we knew better. I think I've come a fair way in realising that everyone has something valuable to offer. Sometimes though that elitism bubbles its way to the surface, like the other day...

Being a chaplain at a High School I am friends with a lot of students. A local music festival (MSFest) was on and I noticed a sudden rise from these young people in the use of the f-word in expressing their anticipation of and excitement from attending the event. The f-word was everywhere, not being used in any malicious manner but it was there. And I was finding it all a poor use of language, I think that words, even swear words have power and using language poorly diminishes from that power. I wanted to challenge what was being put out there in a good natured and cheeky way, so I posted:

Kris Adams hereby named old mr grumpy pants for this post gathers that you were all effin excited about going to MSeffinFest and that it was effin awesome...it was just so effin effin effin eff yeah! wish I had some effin other adverbs or adjectives in my effin vocabulary to describe it.

 

On reflection I think that what I felt was that a bogan culture was on the rise because of this music festival and it was getting in my face. So it was my attitude towards what I see as bogan culture that had a large influence over me putting this put down out there. I haven't removed the post because while I think its motivation is a bit flawed, I am a bit flawed and it does represent me reasonably fairly as a status update - passionate but not perfect.

But how do I ever reconcile my attitude with what I see as bogan culture? Oh sure I can get along with a bogan because we can connect across cultural divides in the language of the ocker which I see as a root culture of bogans but definitely not the same. Yet there are elements of the bogan culture as much as there are elements from a more major cultural divide that I don't like. How much do you tolerate something like bogan culture or a culture that oppresses women or a culture that glorifies greed and consumption for that matter?

I can be as tolerant as they come when the need arises but I'm not sure that our pride of being a tolerant nation is something to be that proud of. Tolerance is not liking-but putting up with, regardless of how you feel. I will grant you that being tolerant is better than being intolerant and there will always be things that we should not tolerate...but who decides what those things are? What about having a foundation of respect? Wouldn't being respectful of differences be better than being tolerant of them? Respect doesn't have to mean agreeance, I think respect comes from an understanding and disrespect and fear come from a lack of that.

Therefore does that mean that the whole f-off we're full movement is just full of insecure and frightened people? It may not be valid to me to feel that way but others do. And if that's the case how do we move those folk from that viewpoint, is just labelling them as bigoted racist jerks effective or would we better off giving them a more clearly defined culture, a symbol they can rally around which includes those that they would currently persecute. What is that symbol? Bugger me if I can figure it out as I've stated before I often despair in the face of human nature where I would want to find hope.

So instead of accepting and respecting differences a large portion of the population have made it abundantly clear that immigrants should become one of us or f-off. Why would a newcomer even want to integrate into something that they don't feel welcome to? Maybe we could sell the idea of instead of having detention centres we could have integration centres. Isn't forced integration a form of oppression? Why do we feel the need to oppress? Are we that insecure about ourselves? Not having a clearly defined culture could probably leave one feeling a bit insecure that your own culture could be overidden by another. There is a history of it after all in that we don't all live by an indigenous culture.

Fear is a destructive force, you could argue that it derives from a primitive side of us where what we don't understand we destroy. So couldn't we just be modern about it and try and understand instead? That is a challenge that I at times undertake and in other times out of frustration revert to condemnation. I am sometimes astounded that we get along as well as we do with all the differences we are able to tweak out of eachother. Is it as simple as that we should be focusing more on what we have in common? Is it another case of easier said than done due to our tribal nature?

And damn it's easy to bash politicians but it does frustrate me that our pollies seem more comfortable with reacting to the populace's fear and even using fear and prejudice to their own ends rather than lead in such a way that the populace will follow. It doesn't have to be a pollie but who will lead and help us to understand and respect eachother? Who will accept people even if they are different? Who will acknowledge all people as having value? Who do we and who will we take our cues from?

Can we find some shared symbols of meaning from which we can build bridges across the cultural divide or do I hope for too much?

Speech Clouds

Speech clouds and thought bubbles, you see them at the base of an online news story. They often have a number indicating how many people have commented on the story. Some sites will even list the most commented stories into a popularity table. I'm not sure that turning journalism into a popularity contest is good for journalism. I'm not sure that a comments section provides a forum for healthy public debate but what the public wants, well in this case the public has got. Can you blame the news sites? I'd like to, I'd hope that the media was about truth and leadership and not about the simple greed of getting the most hits to satisfy the advertisers. Then again comments sections can be seen as truth too, albeit a predominantly ugly one.

I have often been dumbfounded by some of the comments people leave like when referring to a story about boat people someone suggested that our policy should be more like North Korea's where they definitely wouldn't help these illegal immigrants. Needless to say I was angry, I wanted to reply that I would never want Australia's values to be tarnished by taking on the values of a hardline dictatorship like North Korea, as if we would be better off for doing that you expletive expletive. I seethed and said nothing.

There are opinions out there that I agree with and opinions that are so far removed from my perspective on life that I wonder how those holding them can even sleep at night. So I find that these comments sections are very devisive and polarise issues, much like politics. Is it all that black and white? is there no grey area? And I'm not convinced that the sites which push public commentary compared to those that hold back from it a bit more give us an accurate picture of where we stand on particular issues due to the patronage of said sites. Is there a use though for this public forum other than spreading hate around?

Anger is not hate and sometimes it is appropriate to express anger. I can get angry looking at just about any comments section. The ammount of hate,bigotry, prejudice, xenophobia and sheer self interest can make me ashamed to be Australian, even to be human. The truth is that it is a representation of human nature and I myself am not above being human. When it comes to human nature I often despair where I want to hope. How can we be anything other than opinionated though?

An opinion comes from a person's belief and we all have beliefs and therefore we all have opinions. Have I have ever witnessed an attack on someone's opinion where that person then replied with anything along the lines of 'you know what, you might be onto something there, I think you may be right where I was wrong.' No. Attacking someone's opinion is as much attacking what they believe and what we believe is what we structure the rest of our lives around.

If we are sharing our opinion becaue we hope that it will make a difference then how do we do that? Would challenging an opinion or a belief generally require you to encourage the other to question their standpoint. In that if they are to change, they need to own it, you can't make them. I would also think that generally (generalising again) someone is only prepared to listen and question themselves when they have a relationship with that person or they see that person as an authority they trust. So when Joe screams abuse at John who condescends to Jill who puts down Jeff and none of them know eachother...what is achieved other than people getting angry and more instilled into whatever trench they have dug for themselves.

For starting a blog am I not a hypocrite? Well...yes I am in many ways and this blog is no exception. I have a high ideal of what I want this blog to be for - to be amongst all the angry opinions an opinion that often will stem from anger but that hopefully will be expressed in a more constructive way, if I don't succeed and at times I will not then I am a hypocrite. If I am not trying to engage the better part of me though then I may as well give up and just hurl feasces at anyone that doesn't agree with me. Is this my first blog littered with opinions that fall on deaf ears because I am inadequate at expressing a thought constructively, probably. Hopefully I have made an ok start in representing myself.

So wether it is news sites, other public forums, facebook or even in the offline world it would

seem best to either stear clear of strong opinions and comment sections to save yourself the stress or if you feel compelled to comment (which is why I have begun blogging and which I may regret) then I encourage you to be the person that asks questions, that develops relationships, that listens and that shares opinions wisely. Oh! and don't feed the trolls. comments welcome :P