Dear Friends,
I want to leave a note and let you all know that I plan to take a day, two days, perhaps several days right now to focus and seek peace. I recognize in myself a tendency of late to react to belligerent stupidity in online discussions (here, certainly, and also elsewhere) with a sharpness that probably helps no one at all, and leaves me feeling unhappy with myself.
Stupidity I can deal with. It's inside me, after all. When it's coupled with belligerence, though, I find it more than a little infuriating, and sometimes have to step back and gain some distance from it, lest its acids start eating into my own soul. It's the belligerence, the determination to wage war (as that word literally means) in discussions of complex moral issues that gets to me. When that determination is coupled with stupidity, it's a truly dismal, a lethal, combination.
And so I need a bit of time right now to get away from some of this stuff and keep it away from my own heart and soul, where I do not want people bringing their weapons and warfare. I do very much appreciate your patience with me, and I value your comments here. Please do feel free to keep talking. I'll be reading, of course, since I try to keep an eye on the conversation here at all times, to assure that too many bombs are being lobbed into it.