Margot writes, Here is Priscilla looking like a stuffed toy.
7:54 am, Wednesday, December 19 2007
“Leaving a forum”
I left my forum yesterday. Since I had left it 6 months ago and been gone for 5 months (I have only been back for one month) leaving this time was not as huge an experience for me as leaving the first time. The first time I remember posting my good-bye post and then going right to my bed and thinking “what have I done!” It came as huge surprise to me I had left my forum. I remember it was a Sunday morning and I had just clicked on the forum. And owner had started a thread “No more articles about Ron Paul!” And there were many posts on the thread. I read them till I came to my friend’s post, Independent Conservative, we used to post together for Ron Paul, and she posted “I’m outta here! Close my account!” And owner of forum posted back “Gladly! Done!” So I posted “You may as well close my account too.” And that was it! I got up from the computer, lied down on bed and thought “what have I done!”
And I didn’t post on that forum again for 5 months until another Sunday rolled around. Apparently no one had obeyed the forum owner’s rule, because this time she made it stronger. “No more posts about Ron Paul unless he is assassinated!” I was now a lurker on the forum, so I spent the whole week-end reading the 1000 posts on that thread. And the posts were so perceptive, so intelligent, so interesting, I appreciated the forum I had been on for so many years with new eyes. I hadn’t appreciated the forum in that way when I had been on it, because I was caught up in posting myself. I hadn’t realized what a great forum it was, how great the dialogue and communication was. But during the 5 months away from it, I had tried many other forums, and none had had this. I saw how rare and special it was and I longed to join it again. But it didn’t occur to me I would, since I left in protest of the new rule and now she had made the new rule stronger.
But to my utter surprise, while I was still lurking on this thread, which had now grown to 2000 posts, some posters started a revolution on the forum. Instead of obeying the new rule, they did the reverse. They began posting Ron Paul articles in “Breaking News,” right at the top of the forum, in big letters. They said “if I’m going to go down, I’m going down in flames.” What they mean is all forum owners have ban buttons. If a forum owner doesn’t like what you do, she simply bans you. Which means she deletes your account. When you try to sign in to post, “This account has been deleted” comes up on the screen. You are not able to post. Account does not mean money is involved, posting is free. The forum is supported by posters’ donations. An account simply means your screen-name and password are entered, and you are eligible to post. So all she has to do is find where you registered and hit “delete,” and that is it. You are off the forum and can't come back, unless she changes her mind. This is why all forum owners have total power to enforce any of their whims, even if there is 2000 post thread, where posters protest the new rule.
And which is why there never are revolutions on forums. Instead what usually happens is everyone abides by the new rule for a while, and then little by little it is broken, until things are back to how they were. And the forum owner has another fit and makes threats.
But this time there was a revolution. 3 posters simply defied the new rule, openly and flagrantly, 15 minutes after she posted it, and other posters came over and posted on their threads. And my blood was up. I love revolution. And really what did I have to lose! And since I had seen a great article about Ron Paul that morning on another site, I too joined the revolution, and posted it!
I hadn’t planned to return to being a full time poster. I just posted it, and went back to lurking on the 2000 post thread. But I’m only human. Next day I went to read the posts to me (my screen-name there is Palo Verde.) And of course they were so tender and loving. “Palo, welcome back! I am so happy to see you.” How could I not post love back to them. And then for two days I simply responded with love to those who posted love to me.
And the next thing I knew I was back to being a full-time poster on the forum.
But 2 nights ago, when, instead of posting a diatribe against Ron Paul posts, with threats, the forum owner did a different strategy. She simply deleted all the Ron Paul articles right in the middle of when we were all passionately posting on them.
It was such a shock! One minute you are posting to someone on the thread. Next minute, what comes up on screen is “This article has been deleted!” There is a vacant space where the article and thread used to be.
I felt like someone had maliciously cut the phone wires while I was talking to someone, just because they don’t want the conversation to continue.
It felt so sneaky, and it felt so nasty. And I shut down the computer and went in to watch TV and wondered whether I would return. And my Higher Self said “next morning when you wake up, just post you will be away for a few days, so your fellow posters won’t expect you to be on and won’t wonder where you are, that will give you time to come to a firm decision.”
Since all the Ron Paul threads were down, the only post to me was on the religion thread, I had been on that thread too that evening. So I just posted “I won’t be posting for a few days,” and left it at that. But I knew I wouldn’t return for the foreseeable future.
I think I realized that more was involved because so many new experiences had opened up in my life during the 5 months I was away from the forum. And I knew that even tho I had had a glorious month posting on my forum again, somehow it wasn’t meant to be that my whole life would return to posting on a political forum, or on any forum. That I was meant to have a personal life again. That it was time for me to be in close connection with my own friends, friends from the past, and friends from the present.
During my 5 months at the computer with no forum to go to, and with a lot of time on my hands and not knowing what to do with it, my mind had also been free. It wasn’t just free time, it was free mind. And gradually people from my past (friends, family, friends of family) swam into my mind, along with a big urge to reconnect. And I began to call them and then got on email with them. And there was something very fulfilling about it. And I did begin to pour real energy into my Tucson friendships on email too.
It felt real and meaningful somehow, that suddenly I was now truly available to all my relationships, past and present. And I wanted to pay full attention to them, it was a major shift in attention. And I was glad to be in that new place, I wanted to share love with them.
And I find it very interesting that yesterday afternoon, when Helen and I finally did succeed in connecting on telephone, and were able to connect to our Higher Selves together, Helen’s Higher Self said, Helen is having emotions now because she is going thru a change, a big change, and that everyone is going thru the same big change now, and everyone is having emotions because of the big change. And the best thing for Helen to do now is to reconnect with all the relationships from her past that she got disconnected from, and share all her love with them. Because Helen has so much love to give. And now is the time they want it. And then after that, it is time for her to give all her love to her friends in Maui, all her new friends, and make those relationships real.
It seemed so interesting that the suggestions of Helen’s Higher Self to Helen, and the best thing she could be doing now in her life, was exactly what I had been doing during the months I was off my forum, and what I realized I would be doing again now that I had left my forum. With me it had felt so casual and serendipitous. I hadn’t planned to do that, but that is what I wound up doing. But I realize there must be more than meets the eye to it, if Helen’s Higher Self is suggesting this to Helen too. And saying it is the time for it, that everyone now wants this reconnection. It explained to me why each time I had done it, it had worked so well. That the person I had called was so happy to hear from me, and wanted to be reconnected to me too. How welcomed my reaching out had been! Helen’s Higher Self promised Helen she would have this experience too. “They all want it” She told Helen, “this is what they want now.”
I like being closer to my Tucson friends too. I wouldn’t have known all about the advent of Rufus and then later the advent of Priscilla, the two new dogs in Margot’s life, if we had not been close on email and blogs during this time. And I was able to share Jan’s life and mind much more closely, because sometimes it was the only communication I had during this time. I even got to email with her husband.
So even tho leaving my forum last time had high emotion for me the first half hour, when I realized I was gone. This time it’s different. Because this time I know what I will return to, and I want it...
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