Feeling A Little More Centered, Still Socially Retarded.

I attended a meditation retreat this morning with a Buddhist Monk friend of mine. It was nice to have that time and I was happy it was a small group. We had interesting discussion about triggers...emotional triggers that can lead to unintended actions or harsh words when acting out of our wounded places. It is helping me put some things I've been working on into perspective.

And I also decided along the way, to remove a reader's comments to my "Social Retard" post. In the beginning of my creation of this blog, my intention was to explore self, alone and with others, and to hopefully create a fun atmosphere for that to take place. And it truly is MY space, where I express MY opinions. I know that not everyone will agree with or like what I say and I'm OK with that. All comments come to me first and I have retained veto power about what is actually posted. That being said, I'm not going to create an atmosphere here where readers...especially anonymous readers can disagree in disrespectful ways. I'm OK with well-reasoned, respectfully stated disagreement, but not with knee-jerk emotional responses laced with personal daggers.

My goal for this space is not to create a negative or controversial area. It is what it is, I am who I am and I evolve and change over time just like everyone else. Readers will either resonate with me or not. That's why we have choice to read or not read what comes before us. That's why there are channel changers and off buttons and a multitude of blogs to choose from. Rather than be combative, just move on. I've also decided not to write a separate article defending or explaining my use of the word "retard". Because nobody asked me to explain where I was coming from, they just decided I was wrong, so no amount of banter will change that.

Minds are like parachutes...they only work when they are open. And opinions are like belly buttons...everybody's got one. Respectful discourse and debate is apparently a lost art. Polarization seems to be the name of the game.

I DID mention in the beginning of the creation of the blog that hot topics of religion or politics are not on my discussion agenda. And use of terms for marginalized persons is a political debate that I will not have. You will see me use the word retard, retarded, crazy, bedlam, idiot etc in my posts, though not directed at the disabled. That is all I am willing to assure you of.

My undergraduate work was in anthropology, sociology and psychology, where study of linguistics was included, as was the history and perpetuation of the words we used to describe groups of people. Masters degree is in social work where again, we are bombarded with the P.C. terms and political and professional jargon. I have persons in my family and friendship groups who are disabled with a variety of different abilities, and as a professional, work with these groups on a regular basis. None of them have ever expressed offense by my treatment of them or my terminology when speaking to them or about them.

Offense is found where one chooses to find it and where one is actively looking for it under every rock and around every corner. That's a separate emotional issue. Respect and compassion are present or not present regardless of the words we want to continually evolve or change to make them sound more palatable. The intention and the target of our words is vastly more important than the words themselves.

And yes, these are my humble opinions. I neither state them as fact, claim I will always hold to them, nor apologize for them.