Since I decided to be open about my life on my blog, I have become a willing and large target. Most men hate to show their vulnerability. I chose to share it honestly. I started getting hostile, cruel, and mostly dishonest assaults from strangers I didn’t know right away and would never meet.
It got worse as the country became angry and full of grievance and division. It hurts; it always hurts a bit, even when I pretend it doesn’t. Much of the time, I responded angrily and in kind. I always had to fight for myself, and it’s a tough habit to shred.
But I had to change to pursue my spiritual goals to be better than many men and take a spiritual direction in my life.
The people sending those messages do not know me or read my blog regularly. None have read any of my books, I suspect. None have ever spoken with me.
Once they strike and are challenged, they disappear and never come back.
It makes them especially angry to be challenged; they love to hurt. Since they know nothing about me and need to see me as evil, it’s hard for them to talk to me. Above all things, they seem to hate authenticity, emotion, and what they see as weaknesses. When I try to fight back, I surrender parts of myself, dancing to someone else’s tune.
I never expected that when I started the blog, I was a hot mess myself and was weakened by a severe breakdown. I knew the Internet could be challenging, but the level of cruelty and rage was new. The country was changing.
When I shared that, the trolls came running like a dog to a bone. They hate sincerity; it seems to threaten, even trigger, them. I am not the kind of man people generally fear, although I often make people uncomfortable.
(My favorite muse moved to a window)
The way it goes is that I get attacked and hurt, then I get angry. Then I get mean and sometimes cruel. I learned to do this as a wounded child. Getting angry didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now.
I’m working hard to change, but I still struggle with this.
I find myself becoming one of my tormentors, lashing out with anger and reflex rather than thought. I certainly have no compassion for these people; I dislike them as much as they dislike me. That pleases them; they know they’ve drawn blood like animals need to draw blood.
I wouldn’t say I like this about me; it isn’t how I want to be.
I love my blog, and I’m excited about the freedom I have to write. I want the blog to be a peaceful and safe place. These attacks are akin to mosquito bites in general; responding to them hurts me and never hurts them. Stinging and seeing the pain is the whole point for them.
A few weeks ago, I read a suggestion about hurt from Thich Nhat Hanh, a revered Buddhist monk from Vietnam. Hahn’s essay changed me: It’s called “When We Hurt,” from his book Your True Hone.
The essay struck me profoundly and right in the heart. He gave me a way to think about it that I understood intellectually but couldn’t accept. Lately, I’ve been trying to do what he suggests, which has been transformative.
Here is what he wrote. It is a message for the time and the ages:
“When we’re hurt, there are two ways to think. We can think in a way that makes us angrier and want to retaliate. Or we can try to calm ourselves, touch our compassion and understanding, and give ourselves a peaceful mind. This helps us see that the other person also suffers, and our anger will dissipate.”
Finally, the simplicity and truth of this message struck me in the heart.
It makes sense that the people who sent these notes have also suffered, and they deserve some understanding if not forgiveness. Why was it so difficult for me to feel for them?
That is not for them. It’s for me. People who send cruel messages to people they don’t know and will never meet are hurt by definition, even broken. How can we think for our friends if we can’t feel compassion for our enemies?
I want and need to be better than that; anger and hatred accomplish nothing but more hurt. My response was not healthy.
I tried this new idea yesterday; a woman from an animal rights movement was furious with me for not letting Zip sleep in the house in the winter. She was calling me all kinds of names. She said she couldn’t wait to see me “get what is coming to you.”
I left the message alone overnight. Writing in anger is never healthy.
I posted it on my blog comment page. I calmed myself and thought about what compassion and understanding mean. If I couldn’t feel any for this woman, then for who? Does someone have to be poor to be understood?
So I thought about her.
I thought something had to be wrong with this woman for writing messages like this to people she didn’t know. To do this, I learned from my own experience that she must have suffered and, most likely, was putting on me things that had been done to her.
I was surprised. My anger did dissipate. I was no better than she was, and we both seemed to have suffered painfully but in different ways. Still, I considered that we were two parts of the same thing.
I told her I was sorry for her suffering but that I would no longer post messages like hers on my blog. And then I deleted her messages. I told her I would block her if she returned and wish her a good life.
Being compassionate doesn’t mean being bullied or accepting that kind of abuse.
It does mean that we are all humans in this world, and we need to be kinder and gentler to one another. The anger was my problem, not the world’s.
But I found Hanh’s message to be more powerful. We all suffer in this world.
The lucky ones find a way to accept and live in acceptance, not weakness. Some can’t do that.
I’m learning that it takes much more strength to be understanding and compassionate than writing hateful messages to strangers while hiding behind a computer.
I’ve got work to do, but at long last, I know what it is.
