Trueform

[jarandhel]

I just got an interesting glimpse of myself. I've been going through my old posts on several lists, looking for anything I've written that I might want to add to my new essay community, and I ended up looking at some very old posts by myself from when I first entered the community and some posts by other people that talked about how they saw me. It was interesting. I have to say, I don't remember sounding that stupid. My core ideas were more or less ok (with the obvious exceptions) but the way that I expressed a lot of them strikes me as far less mature than I had believed myself to sound at that time. I can only hope that I presently sound to others more in line with how I would like to sound. Time, I am sure, will tell.

Comments

[hai-kah-uhk.livejournal.com]

May I venture to offer some perspective? You were, quite frankly, a kid. When I met you, you were, what, 19 or 20. Sure, you were smarter and more articulate than most kids your age, but you were still a kid. Everyone goes through this. The way I see it, everything people write before their mid-thirties should be regarded as "practice" and not critiqued as the best that person can do.

(Yes, I realize that this timeline gives me only 3 or 4 years till I reach literary/philosophical adulthood. I'm uttering the obligatory "Yikes!" You are fortunate to have more time and to have the skills you have so far ahead of schedule.)

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

If I might venture an opinion of how you seem from my rather external viewpoint..

You seem to me to have the personality type that is most obviously useful to a group or community. The kind that gets out there and does things and makes loud banging noises for others to follow so that they'll feel they are following something grand. Also the kind that says the same things fifty gazillion times because there's always someone who hasn't heard the right of it yet, and always someone spreading disinformation that needs countering.

Very valuable, but I don't see how the task can avoid growing more and more tedious with time. I wonder whether you will remain a grand and obvious leader, or become the spider in the background and let someone else take the brunt of the task of being loud. Every crowns court needs its marshals, its tacticians, its jokers and fools, its courtiers, its diplomats..

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

Feh...that happens to me, too. Looking at old posts and stuff :)

Ya grow in time. Hence, when you look at old stuff you *will* go "Oh my god, what the hell was I *smoking* when I wrote this?" :)

*hugs ya*

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* I definitely know what you mean. Gods, looking at some of the times I Jumped in to defend people from things that at the time I perceived as an attack on them... I just cringe, seeing some of the things that I said at the time. Though I think the way that I said it was actually worse, I sounded very very immature at the time.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* And yet, the fiction that I wrote in high school looks a lot more articulate than some of the posts I made after graduating, on the kin lists. I think it had less to do with my age, and more to do with choices I had made at the time, and world-views I held. I don't think I took my list posts as serious forms of communication as much as I do now, nor strived to make them as clear as I now do. I'm not entirely sure when that changed, though I have some thoughts on it being during or soon after the HOPE fiasco. Probably after.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. your post surprised me a bit. You're the first person in the community that has really called me a community leader, as far as I can recall. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think of myself in that capacity, though.

This is how I've come to look at it (and there may be a future essay expanding on my views concerning this topic at some point): wanting to be a community leader or elder or whatever term you choose to use is, contrary to popular opinion, not a bad thing. Like any other position of authority, it can be done for the wrong reasons and even abused, but when it's done properly the person is a tremendous asset to the community. And in my opinion, the proper way to do it involves working to contribute something to the community that is both needed and harmonious with the wishes of the community.

I've been working on doing just that by offering my own thoughts on some of the major issues in the kin community that may or may not get talked about as much as they need to, and creating some essays that deal with some of them in depth. I've also been working to shape the kin community in some other ways.

Part of that has been by creating a small corner of the community with the feel and group dynamics that I think are most beneficial to me and those kin most like me, and offering it as an example of how the community can function for others to use or not use as they see fit. Wanderingpaths@yahoogroups.com, the wanderingpaths website, and my two journals here are all part of that project. Another part of that will be coming in the form of some essays that I will be writing in the future which express my alternative views on some aspects of our community's dynamics... the essay on why people wanting to be leaders/elders is not a bad thing will be part of that group of essays. I am hoping that it will, at least, promote thought and discussion on some issues that may presently be taken for granted.

(To be continued due to length.)

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

As for your concerns about burnout? I've actually been trying to take that into account with the direction I am working to get things flowing in. I've seen what burnout can do to some of the people that, in the past, contributed the most to the otherkin community. Some have left the community, at least one that I know of left this life, several have divorced themselves from the term otherkin in an attempt to get away from what they see as the negative aspects of the community... and even I, at times, get bloody sick of having to explain the facts of the history of the community these past four years to even some of the people who should have remembered it because they were present for it themselves and seem not to have learned from it. Burnout is definitely a danger, the way things currently are. But do me a favor and imagine for a moment: a community with a sense of it's own history. A community that more freely acknowledges those who have contributed the most to it as the real elders of the community and which offers guidance to newbies about how to eventually reach that status themselves rather than looking down on them for having the desire. A community that separates the idea of new to the community from inexperienced or newly awakened, and offers both awakening resources and introductory materials for the community that are suitable for all possible combinations of the two. A community where newbies are informed about the dangers of the community as well as the great things about it when they first come here. A community where the members contribute to the main resources first and only make their own resources as supplemental ones or to fill in gaps when needed and wanted by the community. That's the kind of community I would like to see... that's pretty much my vision of what the otherkin community could become, if energy was devoted to the right aspects of the community and taken away from the things which detract from it. And that's what I'm working to build, one step at a time, in my little corner of the community with the hopes that it will spread outward to other hearths that choose to follow that example own their own. I like to think of this approach as the ultimate result of having learned from my mistakes with HOPE and turning those lessons to good use. I hope that others will agree with that assessment.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you should have made this observation and posted about it, because enotsola and I had made comment to the effect when chatting in front of the fireplace the other night...

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah.. and it makes me kind of afraid to go back over old stuff I might have posted, myself. ^_^