From: mara@panix.com (Mara Chibnik)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Support?
Keywords: apology
Date: 1 Oct 92 20:17:29 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: (getting there)

wolfe@wolves.uucp (G. Wolfe Woodbury) writes:
 >[ ... ]  We are not a "studio audience" to be prompted with little
 >lighted signs demanding applause or laughter.  There is no laugh track
 >here to tell us the mood.  The support will come when deemed necessary,
 >and it will come spontaneously.]

You betcha.  In fact, the more anyone tries to tell (at least some
of) us how to feel, the more likely it is that we won't feel that
way.  

Except, of course, if they say something like, "Be happy for
me, because I just won the lottery" (or fell in love, or found the
ring I got from my very first lover that I thought I'd lost months
ago, or earned my mentor's highest praise, or came out to my parents 
and they drank a toast to my sexuality...).  Anyone who has stories
like this to tell may consider this an invitation to tell them.
Just from me, though.  (There is no cabal, remember.)  

  >>In fact, the recent spate of complaints from those who don't feel
  >>themselves part of it says to me that _they_ are aware of the
  >>community.  That's not the issue.
 >	Well, they are (in a sense) part of that community,
Sure they are, but they don't know it.  (And we don't always get to
be happy about who all is a member, either.)  Now look-- I've gone
and turned this into a "we/they" dichotomy.  But I don't with a
couple of notable exceptions, know who "they" are.  We have met the
enemy, and they is us, I expect.  Or alliance, or cohort or (bite
your *tongue*) the cabal.  

 >	Well, they are (in a sense) part of that community, but they
 >don't realize that a rather important part of this soc.motss community
 >is the experience that comes from reading/posting for a period of time.
This is often a problem.  In fact, sometimes it takes a while to
figure out who everyone is.  I remember dropping a note to Steve
Dyer, when I'd been reading soc.motss for over a year, asking him
why he was being so hostile to someone.  I don't remember who it
was.  But whoever it was had a track record, which is what Steve
told me.  (Just a comment here-- I generally do take that sort of
thing to email.  I figure I can tell from the nature of the response
whether it's worth fussing to the net, and I may avoid setting off a
flame war-- not to mention looking like an idiot.)

I said:
  >>In his followup to this article, Bob Donahue writes:
   >[again BBC was following up with an intermediate article [...]]
I know.  I chose not to acknowledge the intermediate article-- which
I hadn't read except in the followup.

But I'm really glad to see this paragraph again:
   >>>       I, and countless others here have on many occasions
   >>>done our share of nuturing,  [ ... ]  But that takes a lot of effort,
   >>>nearly all of it on our parts.  We individually only have limited
   >>>energy, and have our own lives to expend it.  Anything above
   >>>that is a courtesy, not a duty.  [ ... ]
   >>>yourself.
To which I did not say, as I should have done, that I think it's
more of a gift than a courtesy.  There are people here who regularly
make generous contributions of their attention, intelligence,
empathy, judgment and good fellowship.  Again, I'm not going to make
a list, this time because I suspect that a lot of it happens
invisibly, in email, so we don't always know who is doing it.  But
there is a lot of it going on.  I know, because I've been on the
receiving end of at least my share.


-- 

  Mara Chibnik
  mara@panix.com                Life is too important to be taken seriously.