Belmore

This is the third tattoo I had done, back in my senior year of college. It was a tribute to a friend of mine who had died a few years earlier. He was a great guy, incredibly smart, and very friendly with just about anyone, and his biggest complaint in the world was that there wasn’t more understanding.

I thought that was a perfect permanent tribute, because that’s always been my lasting memory of him, standing on the auditorium stage at our high school telling the crowd that he wished there was more understanding in humanity. He genuinely believed (as do I) that if people spent more time trying to understand each other they would spend less time fighting about their differences.

I think about that a lot, especially when I’m reading through my dash and see people interacting with one another. It’s amazing how quick people are to jump to conclusions or skim through a long post and then quickly reply or reblog to blast the original poster. Rather than try to understand where the person is coming from, or actually read through the entire post, they pick out a sentence or two they disagree with (and sometimes even less than that, which is amazing but definitely happens) and decide to respond with incredible vitriol.

I’m glad for the followees/followers I have, as I rarely if ever see this happen from you. I do see it happen to you (sorry to single you out, Rosa, it’s just the most recent example), however, and that bums me out. I get that online anonymity can bring out the worst in people, but I wish it didn’t.

I wish more people would take a breath, make sure they fully comprehend whatever it is they just read (the issue, the context, the actual words), and then decide whether what they have to say is actually adding to any sort of discussion or whether they’re just being a jerk and/or completely missing the point.

(I’m definitely not the nicest guy ever, but I do try to avoid being straight up rude to people, especially on the internet where there’s plenty of that to go around already.)

Life is pretty short, and you have no control of when it ends. So to put a crass end to this screed, don’t be a dick. Be nice, be understanding, and try to be helpful.

(And thecallus, get whatever tattoo you want. What it means to you is what is important, not how other people perceive it.)