If you let yourself momentarily step back, the internet becomes a place where moment by moment, you can watch universes unfold. Without the moderating influence of physical presence, conversations between humans are simmered down to their concentrate, the purest form of whatever emotional experience happens to be present.
Whilst it’s easy to see how this gives rise to the worst of human nature, I like to think that it also creates the possibility for us the practice the best of it. While our lack of face to face-ness might cause us to feel free to unleash the less desirable parts of ourselves, is it possible this could instead serve as a pause?
That if we are mindful enough, and interested enough, we have the time to observe our reflexive reactions to what is being offered and take some time to reply from a more considered place.
What we choose to magnify lies with us.
Along with the potential for reactivity, the internet (should we allow it) also creates a platform for a heightened state of ‘othering’. Our most primal sense of belonging and safety hinges on our connection to ‘our group’, and so it’s tempting- it may even feel like the most natural thing to do- to join conversations that generalize and create further division in the communities that we’re a part, even under the guise of ethical conduct.
After all, if you ask one person on one side and a person on the other, both will believe themselves to be behaving ethically. How do we judge who is ‘right’?
Although an avid proponent of horsemanship of the type that holds true to the sentience and autonomy of the horse, I have found myself unfollowing pages where the coach or trainer in question has positioned themselves from the pulpit of certainty, delivered with a dressing of righteousness, despite the fact the place that we are both coming from may fundamentally align.
It makes me physically weary.
I’m learning to listen to the little ‘ding ding ding’ alarm inside my body that sits beyond language but alerts me to the fact that somethings off. I read the charismatic, I’m-advocating-for-the-horse words of some and then have conversation with students they have worked with only to find as a part of the coach-student relationship they are constantly berated.
“That’s bullying,” I might say, only to have them respond with “yes, probably, but he seems to really know what he is talking about”. As though the latter cancels the former out. As though true compassion can be selectively applied.
I am a supporter and proponent of activism and action. If you see injustice, speak up. If you understand a system is oppressive, we have a responsibility to do what we can to alleviate harm. Anger is an important activating agent in the same way a fever rises in the body to protect us from forces that seek to weaken vitality.
But amid our anger and concern, we have to make sure we are holding ourselves to the same standard we are expecting of others; to require of ourselves the same consistent fairmindedness and openness to change we are requesting of someone else.
To not elevate ourselves to the position of “enlightened” and the “others” as “somewhere down there”.
One of the most useful techniques I have learned to distinguish between the righteous and the motivating is the flip the words around and read it ‘from the other side’. If instead of listening to these words as a supporter I read them as someone to whom they are directed how does that leave me feeling?
Am I compelled towards opening or closing?
Do I feel like entering conversation or do I now feel quite defensive?
A good check-in to ensure that my intention is one of dialogue and of change, rather than affirming a state of being rooted in ego-inflation and performative ‘right-ness’.
