a_poll_of_sorts silentbob How many people care enough about what other people put on here so much so that it will prevent you from blathering? I find that really sad. Who cares what other people say? Just blather what you want and ignore criticism. 020401 ... silentbob Everyone belongs everywhere. don't avoid places just cuz you think you aren't "wanted" Then you aren't there for blather, you're only there for the people in it. and that isn't really what blather is about. 020401 ... lois on the brink isn't it though? Blather is a community. Yes, people should feel free to say what they want, where they want, and when they want, but blather wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for the community interraction. In any community there is a social standard. It's unavoidable, no matter how hard you try to ignore it. There will always be the more popular blathers. And there will always be those blathers whose very presence invoke a reaction of disgust and dismay from their fellows. It's just how it is going to be. If people feel unwelcome it's not through any unusual weakness of theirs, but rather through a very common weakness in society or community. 020401 ... silentbob they shouldn't let feeling unwelcome spawn complaints and avoidance of blather. they should just blather what they want and read what they want and not let other peoples stupid attitudes cause them to leave or complain or anything like that. cuz then its like, "You guys dont love me, im just not cool enough for your affection" and its like, who are we seriously? are we some upperclass race of Cool Kids that go around and have our cool kid fun and intentionally not invite people we collectively as a whole deem uncool? its a fucking web page. as a community we plaster sayings and quips of witty banter. Sometimes a person or two or three might agree or disagree. if someone responds, you shouldn't use that as a reason to stay or leave... if everyone here rejected me and made fun of everything i blathered, i probably would respond with some lame witty comeback, but i wouldn't leave. I was in a play at school. I had a small part, and i sat backstage with the other kids. And they were all friends and didn't open up to me. I would sometimes try to contribute to their conversation and sometimes they would just either not respond or look at each other in silent response. But i didn't quit the play. i just didn't bother trying to be friends with them after that. 020401 ... pralines&cream most of the stuff i refrain from posting doesn't make it on here because once it's typed, i realize it's too stupid to post. I avoid posting every retarded thing that pops into my head that i feel like typing. P.S. If this was a true poll, silentbob, in the statistic sense, then I believe that your second post may have swayed the decision of some participants. :) But I think i'm just getting caught up in AP Stat. too much. 020401 ... lycanthrope while i agree that it is a common "weakness" of society to have standards, to have expectations and therefore disappointments, and repressed expressions due to fear of such disappointment, in some cases to the sad extent of attempting absolutely nothing and just wanting the universe to wash them away however benignly or malevolently it happens to, i also feel that the point of blather is that it is a forum where the risks are muted, where expression's consequences (and wistfully also it's rewards) are less immediate. The point is...we don't know all of each other on blather...it's like sharing with a stranger...it always seems easier, their standards are avoidable, all you have to do is turn them back into a stranger and poof...you're still your own private genius. Blather is like pornography, we're keeping our world safe by keeping it a little more distant. It's safety is also it's emptiness though and as is inevitable, you all try to know each other better and better...and i can't lie...i'm intrigued by many of you. But the desire to be held in high esteem, to have praise lavished upon us, to be the very summit of the world to each other is strong, and it becomes more noticeable when the stakes are higher, when you've a reputation to uphold...so we erase some of what we write, or we hold out one special name for our good stuff, and aren't sure who we're going to name ourselves till we've typed the last sentence! We wish we could be more consistent, less multiplicitous, so that people will know us, care about us. And yet we also want to be spontaneous, but the two are not so compatible. We want the same respect people have for the sea, we want to be immeasurable, uncontainable, suggestive and languidly sudden...like beauty, like a god...but we also want to be familiar, we want assurance, we always want something beyond this moment. So we inherantly distrust anything that is purely of this moment and we revise and revise and revise even when what is needed is presence, is the forgetting of all those standards that tell us to distrust the voices within. Blather is supposed to be an escape from the constraints, but like all human endeavors it surreptitiously aspires for organization in the face of chaos. One is exciting and undependable, sometimes beauty, sometimes disgust, and the other is dependable but ultimately silence. Cut out the p.r. We'll all have our favorites. Stop trying to be one of them. I shouldn't have to tell anyone this. It doesn't matter as long as you don't know anyone here. Unless you do. And then the weight of the world is on your shoulders...and i don't envy you my brothers and sisters...my sad shifting army of atlas'. Then please continue to cancel yourself out to silence with opposing sentiments. Hey...here's a funny idea...what if someone wanted to kill themselves...but was constantly disappointed with and revising their suicide note, untill they decided they'd never get it right and might as well live. That's my reason for living...to write the perfect suicide note....well not really...but how awful. Jeesh this went on a bit long didn't it..i shouldn't send it...do i dare, do i dare disturb the blather universe? Like any of you will even respond...haha 020401 ... silentbob i like your two cents. 020401 ... silentbob pralines and scream it started as a poll but then came back to me bitching about how people take other people too seriously 020401 ... Casey I always thought that was the basis of blather. To say what you feel, a place where free speech reigns supreme. The beauty of this place is, most of the people you talk to you never have to meet in real life if you don't want to. If silentbob makes me angry on blather or hurts me, not that he does (you old cutie), then it's not like it is going to change your life outside this one place, this one address in the internet. 020401 ... werewolf it's scary depending on other people...but it's also where most of life's excitement and hidden rewards are. Sure we can surprise ourselves from time to time with what we blath (or blathe?) but really we go to see how our words interact with others, how they take them and make them their own, how they introduce new ideas to us. Being a wallflower is fine...unless it so happens that you want to dance, and everyone wants to dance, even the people who think they don't know how. 020401 ... silentbob thank you casey werewolf: both blath and blathe are acceptable. We also would have approved of "Blather" or "Say" 020401 ... god i believe in surgery, and thats a fact 020401 ... lois on the brink so, just to be clear, are we saying that we don't want people who are swayed by public opinion to blathe on this website? 020401 ... daxle I like kittens, if that's what you're asking 020401 ... paste! i'm a big fan of the pepperoni enema 020401 ... pat sajak i think you should take a poll and ram it up your ass. 020401 ... pralines&cream pat sajak: I think you hit the nail on the head. That is exactly the point. 020401 ... pat sajak fuckin' h 020401 ... jon_dog 3 cheers for pat sajak. 020401 ... silentbob no, im saying blather your hearts out no matter what people say. 020402 ... pralines&cream exactly. i think pat sajak did exactly that. 020402 ... silentbob yes he did. i would be honored if he did it to me. 020402 ... misstree never really given a shit what others think... i, also, will sometimes refrain because it's just some random babbling, not worthy of blueness... but that's more for my own standards than anyone else's. ave individuality. 020402 what's it to you? who go blather from