How many drafts do I have in my admin section?  Too many.  Why don't I post them?  I dunno.  In the spirit of "no more hiding", I'm going to be posting all of my drafts, no matter how old they are.  This is a rant/vent I wrote last week. 

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When I was attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings, there were people who would share right behind someone (N'awlins-speak for right after someone) and in their sharing, they would intentionally say something condescending to make the previous "sharer" feel less than.  They would infer something similar to, "You don't know what you're talking about.", "You think you know, but you don't.", "I'm better at this than you.", I"m smarter, wittier, prettier, faster" ... blah, blah, blah, blah.  I call it a "slap down". 

I compare a slap down to someone seeing a bird flying, reaching up and just batting it out of the sky, into the dirt, stepping over it's corpse and riding away on their "holier than thou" horse.  Why do people do that?  Say what you're going to say, but why would you want to demean, belittle, minimize someone else in the process?  I don't get it.  I don't get mean people.  What's the point?  To make yourself look like a jackass?  My mother once told me I had to be tolerant because some people are born jackasses and they never recover ... take my jackass brother for instance ... always slapping someone down -- he's a master at slap down.  Unfortunately, I never learned to be tolerant of that sort of behavior.

I'm probably one of the biggest smart asses around and I admit it.  However, I don't do things to hurt people -- at least not intentionally.  I try to esteem people in life. That doesn't make me better than anyone else ... it only means that I follow my higher sense of right.  My higher sense of right doesn't allow me to be cruel and condescending to people.  I don't presume to know anything and I don't assume anything.  I'm not a bleeding heart, believe me.  Half the people I know wouldn't like who I'm capable of being which is a sharp-tongued, wicked-mean bitch.  Most people I know don't see that side of me because I'm rarely provoked to that point and never by my friends.  Mess with someone I love and I'll go from zero to bitch in a nanosecond.  And believe this ... I know the difference between joking amongst friends and genuine condescension.

Why am I so riled?  Because lately I've been witnessing it on the internet... on blogs, in comments.  So far, it hasn't been done to me but I hate seeing it done at all.  Just because we read a blog, doesn't mean we KNOW that blogger.  Just because we read a comment made on a blog doesn't mean we know that person or how they're related to that blogger or ... whatever.  Get a grip!  Get a life that doesn't discourage other people but instead encourages them -- esteems them.  Life is hard enough without being slapped-down by someone who doesn't know anything about you.

I wish we could express ourselves without feeling the need to tear down someone else.  I can boil it all down to two words ...

CHECK YOURSELF!

The stupid thing about this post is that I rarely get any  "slap down demons" on my blog.  So ... erm ... who's going to read this that it will impact?  Nobody ... but hey, I had to vent.  Okay, I'm done now ... *breathing in deeply through the nose and out slowly through the mouth -- breathe in, breathe out*  Only one remedy for the way I'm feeling right now -- Peeps and chocolate bunnys.

Exit -- stage left.

** the title of this post are lyrics from "Easy To Be Hard" from the musical "HAIR" **