How to Be Yourself and Get Along Online
Since I started blogging in January, I've invested time in several different communities, starting with OMG.LOL, followed by Microblog, Scribbles, r/MacApps, r/Obsidian, BearBlog, 500.social and the Blaugust Discord. The most personal of these are the Mastodon community around OMG.LOL, Scribbles and Microblog. The two Reddit communities are the most impersonal. As in any group environment, I have personal interactions with other people and with groups of other people. I also get to watch interactions where I'm not directly involved because of the way the Internet is structured.
Some of my rules are:
- Stay out of other people's fights
- Never ignore racism, homophobia or misogyny
- Never go "Well, actually…"
- Give lots of complements
- Offer sympathy
- Answer questions
- Avoid taking sides unless morally or ethically necessary
- Give the benefit of the doubt
- Discern the difference between a discussion and an ego-based argument
Sometimes these rules collide and that's when it gets tricky. The easiest thing to do in that situation is to withdraw and become silent, pretending not to have seen the brewing controversy. Unfortunately for me, I usually don't do that because I hope against hope that I may be able to play peacemaker or offer some insight. I fully admit that there is some ego in that methodology. Fortunately the past few months have only had one major flare-up among my community of friends. It hasn't been easy to navigate and just when I think it's over, it flares back up. I am only peripherally involved but I kind of hate it. People get understandably emotional and the things they say reflect that. Last night someone told me I was forgiving people the wrong way and I had to sit with that a while before responding.
Seeing as how I am almost 60 and live only with my wife with whom I get along well, I could easily maintain a drama free life, if that were my main objective. It isn't though. My objective is to be authentically myself, which involves a certain amount of opinionated output and a desire to have real human interactions with real humans even if they are sometimes messy. That's how I learned the values I treasure, which are not the typical values for my demographic in regards to age, sex, race, education, military service, work history, and sexual orientation. Had I just sat back and minded my own business and avoided every controversy for the past few decades, I'd have ended up a totally different person.
I'm not a religious person but I don't discount those who are in the search for what passes as wisdom. I managed to find recovery from addiction in a 12 Step program despite not being your typical Higher Power quoting type. One passage from Augustine, the influential African bishop of the first millennium has always held a deep meaning for me.
Once and for all, I give you this one short command: love, and do what you will. If you hold your peace, hold your peace out of love. If you cry out, cry out in love. If you correct someone, correct them out of love. If you spare them, spare them out of love. Let the root of love be in you: nothing can spring from it but good.
That's really pretty simple, if not easy. You can apply it in almost any situation. Even on the Internet.
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