I don’t have a sense of Q as person, not from what is shared here on the forums, so I have not spoke about him as an individual here. I have only spoken to what I consider aggressive and directly personal posts, not just by Q, though that has been assumed of me I see. Anyway, I see these types of things quite separately: behavior and choices, are NOT an individual person or their Yoga practice. The distinctions do not stop there though, not for me.
I also see threads on this forum where I wish that new-to-yoga students were offered replies in what I would hope to be a softer, more empowering style of reply. I have felt the sting from the words of other members here too – personally directed toward me, but also as disappointment by the style in which it seemed others were answered or spoken to. Sometimes it is provoking for me too, sometimes not. I chalk all of this up to me being in practice and the rest of folks here doing the same. Additionally, FlexP’s earlier post was spot on for me regarding this – the state of my own mind when reading. I liked his point of view and presentation on this very much.
David, you and the Q whom you have described, do not have a monopoly on anger, aggression, provocation, competitiveness, and the rest.
In fact, I was going to ask you for rent if you have been using these as often as you say you have
In fact, I haven’t read a single thread where any member, not a single member here, has ever spoken to anything other than the fact that they themselves are in practice with all of this. And if I’ve missed a post where a member has, it doesn’t matter so much because we all know that we ALL are…
My feeling is that everyone who wants to be a member here should be allowed membership, to read and to contribute, but with contribution should come an additional request to stay in practice and that they sangha should support each other to stay in practice. Perfection, and the million opposing versions of that are not necessary, but we should all try to raise our own bars of behavior in practice and the spirit of sangha, even when we are riding high on our feelings of being “justified” and “righteousness”. Name calling, efforted attempts to belittle, and excluding members who have English as a their second language, are not enough effort in my opinion, or in my hope for the forum. Continuing on as you will when another has told you that your action and words are causing them pain is not enough for my hopes for the forum either.
Sure going at individual members can raise awareness and hopefully a “is there truth here?” moment of reflection, but it doesn’t support change in the behavior and or the environment here. From where I am standing, what much of this looks like to me is someone striking another 5x as hard as the original offense to teach them that striking others is wrong. A tool for change, yes, sometimes it can be, but it not the best tool for change IF that is really the desired goal here, which leaves me questioning if change is the actually desired goal of Q’s pointed post toward Willem, Pandara and Gordon, or if this is really an effort to extract of a pound of flesh. This is not clear to me. Is benefiting the environment here important to you Q?
Disagreement, and directness and even sharpness, are not tools that I am familiar with myself. My teacher uses this with his students and they are part of my own partnerships. Even anger is a tool for cutting through confusion and wrong seeing. My bottom-line hope is that we do better with what we are provoked with when we are here, out of support of practices and to benefit our practices.