Self-Censorship. Oh, and The Sims 2.

I have too much crap to catch up on.

Seriously, the thing about being out sick for two and a half days is that I’m inevitably absolutely swamped with emails and random stupid crap when I get back. Today, of course, is no exception. I probably don’t really have time to write, but I WANT to write, and I need to, and so I am doing exactly that.

Thank you for your well wishes, by the way. It was a sinus or possibly upper respiratory infection, it knocked me flat on my ass, and although I’m still a little weak and tired and congested and coughy, I feel a hundred and ten times better today than I did yesterday.

It occurs to me that one source of my recent major writer’s block here is that I’ve been censoring myself, and that annoys me. It’s something I vowed never to do on this page, but I’ve found (or convinced myself) that it’s necessary to do exactly that sometimes.

I’m avoiding writing about work because I’ve been slammed with what I’m sure is a very healthy dose of paranoia, and although I have all kinds of freakin’ awesome stories about how terribly Dilbert my office can be sometimes, I’m taking a break from that.

And then there’s politics. I have plenty to say about the Presidential race, and I have quite deliberately chosen not to say it here. With the exception of my furious response to having my bumper sticker stolen (something I actually regretted a bit after writing but left up), I’ve stayed pretty true to my word on this, and I’m going to tell you why.

It’s not that I’m afraid of offending people – Lord knows I’m quite capable of offending tons of people without uttering a single word about politics, and most of the time, other people’s feelings on a subject are not enough to make me curb what I’m about to say. That may sound selfish, but it’s true. At the same time, though, it is about me trying to be sensitive to my readership, in a way.

You’d have to be living in a cave to miss how absolutely, unbelievably nasty this race has been. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s any worse than past elections, because I didn’t really get into politics until after I graduated from college – so, as unfortunate as it sounds, I paid very little attention to previous presidential races during my lifetime. But this one – I know for sure it’s nasty, and sometimes it seems like I can’t find a single place in the world (physical or virtual) that is free of this particular turmoil.

Like many of you, I visit a large number of web sites daily – probably way more than I should be, considering that I’m at work. But in the past few weeks/months, I’ve found myself avoiding some places I used to frequent. I have a lot of trouble dealing with the battle cries, the disenchantment, and most of all, the sheer anger I’m running into everywhere I go. The “all you stupid fucking liberals/conservatives” and the “our candidate is a genius, yours is a jackass” and the “anyone who thinks X is a complete idiot” themes are really getting to me.

I’m very sensitive, and when I run across these posts, I’m finding myself feeling personally attacked. And I know this is a ridiculous response on my part, that probably very few people out there specifically feel like I personally am a complete moronic lemming because of what I believe in or because of whose bumper sticker was stolen from the back of my car. But I’m thin-skinned, and sometimes I find that I can’t separate the writing from the writer, and then I’m tempted to defend my position and that’s a futile effort and it just gets worse.

Hugo wrote well on something like this last week, and shared his plan for the days leading up to the election. Here’s mine – I’m not going to talk much about it, if at all.

I care deeply about the outcome of this election. I have some very well-defined opinions on many aspects of it, and I have gotten involved in ways I never would have considered a few years ago. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m avoiding it because I’m uneducated or because I don’t care, or because I don’t want people to disagree with me.

The thing is, I have other outlets for my political ramblings, and you have many excellent outlets for whatever kind of political commentary whets your particular appetite.

I’ll talk about some other stuff here, like how I played The Sims 2 for like five hours straight yesterday while hacking and coughing on the couch, and have gotten so obsessed with it that I created a family with a young man designed to complement the teenager in my main family’s looks and personality so that they could get married when she grows up. And also how I’m so obsessed that I shrieked in horror when my main family’s mother got electrocuted trying to repair the dishwasher, and how my own actual real-life family has started to make little comments and weird faces when I inadvertently yell things like “Quit playing that damn computer game and go get the baby off the floor and feed it, you idiot” at the computer screen.

I just want them to grow up well. Is that so wrong?

7 Replies to “Self-Censorship. Oh, and The Sims 2.”

  1. Brian just bought The SIMS 2 this past weekend. I'm scared to get involved with it.

    I'm glad you're feeling better.

  2. I've had similar difficulties talking about politics on my blog. And that's aide from the fact that I hardly ever post anymore anyway. The climate is one in which it's depressing to even bring up the subject. I think the republican machine has a lot to do with that, but both parties share responsibility. I think the cruz of it is this: the things people get so passionate about are so far removed from the issues that matter, that it's futile to write a post in the hopes of shouting them down. I wish I could sue our current administration for suffering, because the mental toll this is taking is surprising even to me. I am thick-skinned and cynical, and even I can't take it much longer.

  3. i just bought the sims 2 loaded it and it was freaking so slow it kept freezing and i'd get something good and then it wouldnt even save-i was pissed cause i know my computer can definetely perform better than that so i had it looked at and spent $200 dollars to get it fixed just so i can play the sims whats the world coming to

  4. I'm so beat up about what we've got deal with now that I was sure I would just lie in the middle of the street if Kerry fKed up last night.
    But he didn't. So that was good.
    I'm still sure that I couldn't stay in US if we don't see change this November. -and there's no hate here; it's that I'm unbelievably sad sometimes over the state of our union.

  5. First off, Lorie, thanks for the link. Glad you are feeling better, and I share with you an intense desire to see an end to nastiness. Particularly in the b'sphere.

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