July 10, 2011

  • On Reputations and Revisionist History

    If I were to randomly list some names from Xanga, or read off your Facebook friend list, I'm sure you'd immediately think of some qualities associated with each person. Person X is "nice," Person Y is "an awful troll with bad manners," and Person Z is "SO HOT!" or whatever the kids say on the playground nowadays.

    Being a contrarian, I find myself digging deeper, testing people, wanting to know who they truly are. Sometimes this has fun results. I won't tell on them, but some of the supposed meanest people on Xanga have been my sweetest friends in times of trouble (and they also give great hugs!). Although you may think Person A is young and immature, that's actually the friend who is most willing to help when trouble happens, the person with the biggest heart.

    Of course, at times, this digging deeper has a dark side. No one wants to be the one who finds that beloved Pastor Fred is having affairs with half the women in the church, or that your friend who all the parents think so highly of is actually a criminal. I'm still dealing with the realization that an old friend, who I quite honestly thought was one of the best Christians I ever met, was living a lie. It hurts, and I wish I had never asked a few more questions and done my own digging. Every so often, I see a name in a comment section on here, and I want to shout "FRAUD!" as if I were the little kid in "The Emperor's New Clothes."

    With all that preamble (I'm longwinded, I know), here's my thank-you note to one Xangan who truly did live up to his reputation. I won't name him here, but he asked me to check on a mutual friend of ours because he knew I knew him better than he did and could help. The Xangan friend had nothing to gain by this. It was small in some ways, but it helped me realize that revisionist history can go too far. Yeah, I'm still annoyed when the mainstream gets it wrong and respects all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. But there isn't a skeleton in every closet, and sometimes contrarians really do have nothing to correct. So thank you, good fellow.

Comments (18)

  • Good insight, J
    I think I was the opposite. I didn't ask or dig enough.

  • I am the consummate non-intellectual, so I had a little trouble following this. I seems that you know how to investigate people and determine if they are authentic. Some disappoint you and others do not.

    Revisionism as a word meant to me those who take history and try to change the understanding of it. I did not see how that fit into those Frauds.

    I think we all have some skeletons and it is just  matter of size. There is an advantage of being obscure. No one cares about you and it does not matter.

    I hear the media is biased and have never seen it for myself, but I am not a deep thinker or reader. Just killing time.

    I liked reading your post today. Thanks

    frank

  • Sounds like a good person.  Do I know him?

  • I hope he's as modest as he is handsome, whoever this mystery xangan is. 

  • @Roadlesstaken - YOU'RE SECRETLY A MURDERER, ARENT YOU

  • People are the most fascinating, worthwhile study there is.  You're right, the results can often be heartbreaking rather than uplifting, but they are alwaysvaluable.  Sometimes the person who seems uncaring is simply someone who reserves his concern for those who are desperate and figures the rest will be stronger if they have to work it out alone.

  • damn you discovered Im really a nasty bitch. sigh.

  • This is from something I edited recently. I didn't write it, but I have thought about it a lot during the past few weeks. I hope it is true of me:

    "Physically, we expect children to resemble their parents. And spiritually, we should be

    expected to resemble our Heavenly Father. God has never distorted,
    misrepresented, or altered reality in any way. He is true in all His dealings.
    Our lives are to have this same quality of truth about them. There should never
    be any question as to whether we are representing reality. Our testimony should
    be as reliable as reality itself."

  • @Roadlesstaken - I think you should have figured it out by now, Pastor Fred. :-p Read the post and tags closely...

  • Sound like a good to be friend :D

    - Paula voodoo spell

  • Just because you find that dark secret of a nice person doesn't mean that's really who the person is. People make mistakes all the time. 

  • Hmm, oh this is so intriguing john.

  • Are you saying Alex is traveling to sleep with sexually deprived asians?

  • I try to just see the best in everyone because I don't know how to weigh people's good and bad against each other to determine their true character. Is the one bad thing enough to override everything I've ever known about a good friend? Can someone consistently bad be redeemed? I don't know because I don't see into their hearts and motives and so on; only God can do that. So I give the benefit of the doubt.

  • I really try, regardless of someone's actions, to believe that they are good people.  There are somethings that I have a hard time looking passed, but in general, I think I am able to be friends with both law enforcement and criminal because I understand that things drive people to do stuff we find unacceptable.  Some times they did not grow up in a way that allowed their maturity, reasoning or understanding to form.  Some times they have a demon they are hiding with other actions because they cannot accept a darker part of themselves.  The important part is not to judge, but to take people as they are.  Humans who make mistakes.  Humans who get lost.  Humans who do not have the understanding or experience to think to behave differently or look outside themselves.  This does not mean they are bad or untrue people.  This means that we should be careful with our trust, as they may not know how to handle it, but respect and love them just the same.  

  • Does this mean you found out that I buy my pie crusts?

  • and next you are going to tell me that Sarah Palin wasnt at the signing of the Declaration of Independence 

    p.s. - this comment might just be more funny to me because of your title and the clips I have seen from some people involved in the Tea Party

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