| Author | Message | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 7893 Registered: 5-2002 |
Every once in a while, a member here will let me know that there is a thread that's getting a bit heated, and will ask that I take a look at it. Last night, it was Mica that let me know that a thread was getting heated, and it was Mica that had to post to the thread asking that folks knock off the personal exchanges, saying "I'd really prefer if all participants can keep personal communications confined to personal emails". As a generalization, and from what I've gathered in my research, there are two things that inform (give form to) our actions, reactions, and decisions. These are often referred to as genetics and environment. Our genetic makeup gives us certain propensities or tendencies. Each of us is unique genetically, and thus we have different wired-in tendencies towards, for instance, aggressive or passive behavior, or an outgoing or withdrawn personality. However, these are just tendencies; our actions are also heavily influenced by environment. Environment includes all the things a person has been exposed to during their lifetime. One of the really big environmental factors is family. For most of us, our initial years were heavily influenced by our parents and our brothers and sisters. When we were first trying to figure out how to survive in the world, we got a lot of cues from out parents. And our parents were reacting to a lot of stuff in their world; they had their share of fear, anger, and resentment about various aspects of the world they were living in, whether it was their job or boss, or the in-laws, or their ability to pay the bills, or the geo-political situation. I was about eight years old when my dad went down in our basement and filled in the windows with cinder blocks during the Cuban missile crisis. Our parents were reacting to events in their lives; and they were our primary initial models for figuring out how to survive; how to react. Think back to your parents and your childhood with them. Now consider that no one else on this forum had those parents. No one else had the formative experiences that you had. We are all unique. And family is just the first example. Another huge example is school, from pre-school through college. The kids we formed bonds with, the bullies, the ones we thought were really weird (we had no idea that perhaps some of our classmates were in some seriously abusive situations and were in need of our compassion). Our teachers. What we were taught, and what we were not taught. And nobody else on this forum had the classmates, the teachers, the education, or the experiences that you had. All of us have had childhood experiences that, because we were so young and so inexperienced in the world, were at the very least extremely unpleasant. And some of us have had experiences that could be described as traumatic. Some of us have stuff that we try to keep buried to this day. And some of us are working on understanding the events that have shaped us. To very briefly touch on the interaction of genetics and environment consider that one may have a genetic propensity towards aggressive behavior but may grow up in an environment that taught non-violence, understanding the other's point of view, and co-operation. On the other hand someone with a genetic propensity towards aggressive behavior may have grown up in an environment with parents who fought all the time, who bitterly complained about their bosses, their jobs, their landlord and everything else they saw as the cause of their suffering, and who turned toward alcohol to kill the pain. Thus, though we may have a genetic propensity toward some type of behavior, it isn't necessarily controlling. There are tools for learning to live in harmony with the world around us. And, though we may have had a traumatic childhood, or an environment that taught us ways of dealing with our world that cause us to react in ways that might not always be harmonious, there are tools for unlearning these behaviors; tools for pealing back the layers of conditioned responses, conditioned thought patterns that we have carried around with us for so long, thought patterns that are so controlling that we tend to think of them as "I"; there are tools for pealing back these layers and discovering our common humanity, our common love and compassion for each other as brothers and sisters on this planet. Who each of us is right now is the sum of all of our experiences in life, the flow of karma. All of us have suffered at some time or other. All of us tend to feel some degree of dissatisfaction; some degree of desire for things to be different. We are all human beings. We share a lot in common; we share our very essence, our humanity, our soul, our spirit, in common. We are all brothers and sisters. We have all suffered. We are all deserving of compassion. So .. When someone posts something to this forum, or any forum, or when someone at work says something at work, or around the dinner table, that you don't agree with, or see as "different", you don't have to react, attack, exacerbate, or escalate. Breathe. Practice (and this does take practice and lots of it) being aware of how you are reacting in the present moment to external stimuli. With practice, you can notice when you are reacting negatively, when you are about to respond negatively, when you are about to escalate a situation. And that noticing gives you the opportunity to breathe, to be aware of this process of reacting, and to realize that you don't have to respond and escalate. This breath, this pause, gives you the chance to recognize that the person to whom you are reacting is, like yourself, a fellow human being who has lived through and been shaped by an unique and extraordinary flow of events; a person deserving of our compassion and understanding. So .. Part of my role as moderator, as I see it, is to help keep our community a warm and welcoming place for us to share our common love of music and instruments. To that end, from time to time I write pieces like this one, and to that end I wrote the posting guidelines several years ago. I generally don't consult with Mica and Susan when I post these pieces, as they are busy building instruments. Thus these pieces are merely my suggestions and should not be assumed to be the positions of Mica, Susan, or Alembic. However .. Last night Mica posted. And I think that her statement that "I'd really prefer if all participants can keep personal communications confined to personal emails" should be taken as a good bit more than one of dave's suggestions. And I would add as a "suggestion" that, before sending that email, you breathe. | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 782 Registered: 11-2004 |
And as moderator Dave you will not be giving us a clue to which thread will you?? Never mind..may have been an interesting read...NOT! | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 7925 Registered: 5-2002 |
Nope; but I've got some pretty pictures of shiny basses and guitars! | ||
| mike1762
Advanced Member Username: mike1762 Post Number: 296 Registered: 1-2008 |
It's hidden in the deep recesses of the forum.  | ||
| juggernaught
Advanced Member Username: juggernaught Post Number: 283 Registered: 3-2007 |
Just search for the words "Madonna lovin' bubblegum pop listenin' Peavy playin' sissypants" and you'll find it. | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 785 Registered: 11-2004 |
Found it...I am not saying anything else on this, my curiosity is satisfied. | ||
| oujeebass
Intermediate Member Username: oujeebass Post Number: 153 Registered: 10-2002 |
No badgeholders please... thats all I ask. |
