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  1. #1
    No One of Consequence wilomn's Avatar
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    2-9-13 I Care More

    A thread recently got me thinking again about relationships and friendships and acquaintances. The thread was about what rapists look for in a victim and one dumbass’s comments to some of the women who had been raped and chose to share about it.

    It REALLY pissed me off that this assclown was so bloody insensitive and uncaring, actually going so far as to say there was no proof if it was just the girl and her rapist involved, that who knew if it was true without witnesses. The pure stupidity of his statements, and apparently he’s not stupid as a rule, galled me. I’m really hard to gall.

    Now, I don’t know many of the people on this forum, on any forum really, but I found my feelings, very protective and quite willing to, in a manly way of course, put them behind me, using myself as a shield, while I faced off with this jerk. Normally I let people fight their own fights, occasionally egging on one side or the other, but this time, I had actual feelings about people I don’t know. Very strong feelings of wanting to help; wanting to help in a different way than I do when someone has been ripped off. I’m pretty good at helping those who have been handed the poopy end of the stick in a reptile deal and occasionally I am able to offer support or a point of view uncommon enough to be of actual help with other, more personal problems.

    This train of thought though, all started when a friend of mine, a member here who I have never met in person but consider an actual friend, told me about a friend of his that had worked for 40 years, retired 6 months ago and got a terminal cancer diagnosis a couple of months ago. The guy will be dead before summer, before his first grandchild is born, most likely. The due date is in July. Does that just suck, or what? I know, I think, how I’d react to it, I’ve been this () close to it myself, but that’s still light years away from, “you’ll be dead in six months.”

    Two years ago, almost three, I got the lovely news that I had cancer, stage four, but not terminal. Usually. Yet. It’s a lovely disease. I’m lucky, the chemo and stem cell transplant, using my own stem cells this time, only had about a 1% chance of killing me. If/when (they expect it to return sometime in the next few years, maybe) it comes back I can do the chemo again and try with someone else’s stem cells, which has about a 35% mortality rate, do nothing, or hope the medicine has made some huge strides in fighting what I’ve got in remission. Death and its imminence are never far away, though I have made a habit of living each day like it was the only day for a long time. I plan for the future, started a business with a friend of mine, hope to see my grandkids down the line when the fruit of my loins start to reproduce themselves, but I never assume any of it will happen. I hope and dream, plan and fantasize, but I never assume.

    I had a really bad upper respiratory infection a couple of weeks ago and my lungs were full of fluid, just like they were before I started chemo. Trying to breathe water is not easy and that’s what it felt like. Every breath a wheeze, literally able to hear the fluid in my lungs. I’m fine now, but it did get me to wondering how long I would continue to be.
    All of that got me thinking about people. The ones I know, the ones I knew, the ones I’ve never met but know through forums like this one. I’m not a real social kind of guy. I really don’t need a lot of interaction with others. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about those others. In fact, I care more now than I did before, which I can understand, but still marvel at. I can look behind me and see a really long road, the beginning of which did not lead to where I am now. Figure that one out.

    It bugs the crap out of me that I couldn’t do more for my friend with the sick friend or any of the women the asswipe insulted. You guys who know me from when Fauna was The Wild West might have an idea of what I mean. It’s really hard to narrow down, to define just what IT is exactly. I’ve been trying, really hard too, for the last few weeks to understand both the way I feel and how to express it. After all, this forum is here for me to express and, to a lesser but no less important extent, for others to express what they feel about what I’ve written.

    Did you know that for years I had a serious reputation for being quiet? In real life I am NO WHERE near as fast with a quip or smart ass retort as I am online. Without time to think and edit, I just plod along.

    I think folks here at BP.net, and other sites that have regular members, but here in particular for me, have become more than sign on names and icons. This has baffled me a bit. I’ve taken up for the underdog in real life for a million years or so, not all the time and not loudly, so that’s not new. I’ve been a smartass for a really long time, decades, so that’s not new. I’ve played devil’s advocate (I read somewhere, can’t remember where, that if you’re not ready to argue both sides of any disagreement to the best of your ability you’re unprepared) on more than one occasion mostly to validate what I thought, but also to shed a little light to maybe help others find their way in the dark, as if I knew not only that they were lost, but also in need of that help. Big head? Me? No way.
    But, with my friend and his friend, every day I wish there was something I could say, something I could do, that would help him deal with that impending death. There’s not. He’s a smart compassionate guy and deep down I know he knows I would if I could, but other than be his friend, what is there that I could do? In the past I have reached this spot, he’s not the first person I know who’s had a friend get a terminal diagnosis, but this is the first time it’s been on my mind this much. I suppose my own brush, wide though it was, with the Ol Grim Reaper worked some change on my fundamentals. For sure on the mentals, not so sure about the funs though.

    In a round and round and round about way, I’m saying that people who would have … had a meaning, would have meant something to me in the past, are a larger presence, have more meaning, carry more weight in my thoughts and feelings, than any time in the past and that is something I’ve also spent considerable time pondering of late.

    How did this happen? Why did this happen? Would this have happened if my habit of assuming there was no tomorrow was not so thoroughly validated by my year of fighting cancer? Even though I never really thought I would die, I had to make sure that if I did, everything, from animals to DNR paperwork, to what to do with my monstrous False Water Cobras, talking with my kids, my Mom, my family and friends, if I hadn’t actually had to do all that, even though I was pretty sure none of it would be needed, would I feel, would I be thinking , as I do now? I doubt it, but is THAT really important? I’m not somewhere else thinking something else, I’m here, writing this. Is THAT an answer? What is is what is and what is not, isn’t. Is that fluid or rigid? Room for change or written in stone. And then my mind says to me, rigid can be bent and stone can be broken, so what really has permanence?

    So many tangents. What matters, what’s fluff? I feel like I’m chasing a runaway kite. The wind is taking it up and away, but the string is almost close enough for me to grab and if I can, all I have to do is hang on until I can reel in my reward. Of course, the wind is gusty and every time I make a grab the kite flies a little higher or dips a little lower, always taking the string just past my fingertips. I’ll keep running until the field ends and the trees begin, hoping that the reward lives up to the promises, not sure what either actually are, just positive that I want to know. (yes, when I was a kid I had a brand new kite that the wind got hold of, took until there was no more string on my spool, the teased me with as I ran as fast as my then little legs would carry me, grabbing and missing by a hair the string attached to my very new very cool kite, which I never saw again)

    I want to know, I guess is what I’m getting at. I have guesses, and I’ve got hunches, and I’m pretty sure, but … what makes you people, 99% of whom I really will never know in real time, matter more now than you did before?

    I care more, that’s what. Why, now that’s an interesting question.
    I may not be very smart, but what if I am?
    Stinky says, "Women should be obscene but not heard." Stinky is one smart man.
    www.humanewatch.org

  2. #2
    BPnet Veteran Anatopism's Avatar
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    You said something that I can identify with, in fighting for the underdog, and standing up for what's right, or pointing out both sides of a debate. I realized recently that I don't point out flaws in arguments or act as the devil's advocate to cause problems (most of the time), to win an argument or to be right... but I am very much invested in seeing the truth (or justice, or knowledge), as if truth is it's own entitiy that requires protection. So I ask you, is it that you care more about the people in your life, or is it that you are more aware of the injustices they face, no matter how minor they may seem, and are exhibiting the same level of caring or effort in their defense as you would have previously?

  3. #3
    No One of Consequence wilomn's Avatar
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    Re: 2-9-13 I Care More

    Quote Originally Posted by Anatopism View Post
    You said something that I can identify with, in fighting for the underdog, and standing up for what's right, or pointing out both sides of a debate. I realized recently that I don't point out flaws in arguments or act as the devil's advocate to cause problems (most of the time), to win an argument or to be right... but I am very much invested in seeing the truth (or justice, or knowledge), as if truth is it's own entitiy that requires protection. So I ask you, is it that you care more about the people in your life, or is it that you are more aware of the injustices they face, no matter how minor they may seem, and are exhibiting the same level of caring or effort in their defense as you would have previously?
    It's the people. I've defended bad guys who were wronged and pointed out good guys who weren't right, almost always without regard to who they were, friends do get more attention from me than strangers. I still strive for what I think is right, but am now, not more aware of collateral damage, but maybe just more sensitive to its effect.

    I'm still not sure exactly what the change is, but I know it's there.
    I may not be very smart, but what if I am?
    Stinky says, "Women should be obscene but not heard." Stinky is one smart man.
    www.humanewatch.org

  4. #4
    BPnet Lifer Skiploder's Avatar
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    Re: 2-9-13 I Care More

    I would hazard a highly educated guess that you provided a lot more comfort and support than you think you did.................

  5. #5
    BPnet Veteran interloc's Avatar
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    2-9-13 I Care More

    Quote Originally Posted by Skiploder View Post
    I would hazard a highly educated guess that you provided a lot more comfort and support than you think you did.................
    That's the nicest thing you have ever said skip. Lol.

  6. #6
    BPnet Senior Member I-KandyReptiles's Avatar
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    2-9-13 I Care More

    Quote Originally Posted by Skiploder View Post
    I would hazard a highly educated guess that you provided a lot more comfort and support than you think you did.................
    x2

    Willomn, I don't know you well at all and haven't really conversed with you, but I must admit that you are definitely one of the people who I love reading their posts!

    <3 xoxox

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