I just trashed a rather sarcastic post I wrote yesterday because when we saw the skin cancer surgeon today I felt a little abashed. You see, I had wanted him to go see Ants in the nursing lodge, make a judgement about the skin cancer and schedule the operation; after all, his rooms are only a few streets away from the nursing lodge. Instead, Ming and I drove into town, picked up Ants, took him to the appointment and then back to the nursing lodge. Ants was fairly mobile so it wasn’t too much of an ordeal but I get very nervous taking him anywhere now due to various offshoots of Parkinson’s Disease that can happen suddenly.
This surgeon has operated on various of Anthony’s skin cancers before but not for several years. He is rather delightfully eccentric and so is his wife, who manages the practice, but I am a little uneasy with them because we had a bit of a red tape kerfuffle years ago and I got a bit cross. This time I decided to be polite and accepting of the red tape because the system requires it and perhaps my previous sarcasm should have been directed at the system? Or maybe I have a teensy anger problem at the moment, as does Mingy.
The internet is an interesting space in all its complexity but, due to the lack of censorship, it can also be a place of extreme havoc and a space in which the weaving of hate is possible. This happens on Facebook, on WordPress and on all sorts of websites. Sometimes I write something that I might not actually say; this is cathartic but also maybe a bit cowardly. For example, I wrote about my BNDN (Best Next-Door-Neighbour) yesterday more effusively than I actually spoke to her. Conversely, I have written to, and about, the unkind people in my/our life because if I tried to say these things, the door would be slammed or the phone hung up.
A beautiful relative tried to censor my blog a few times until I told her off because self-censorship is my speciality. I guess that’s the trouble with having friends and family reading your blog. You have to be so bloody careful what you say. One blog friend told me that none of her family or friends know about her blog and I think she was very wise! When I taught Creative Writing at the university I would always devote a lecture to the self-censorship conundrum because it is such a huge dilemma when you want to write something but you are scared someone will disapprove. I used to say, “Just pretend your parents aren’t looking over your shoulder. Write bile, write rage, write blood – write passion!” It seemed to work but it had its drawbacks because when it came assessing those assignments, it was like being hit by lightning in good and bad ways.
I am sometimes too honest for my own good and this week my anger has leaked into my posts because I didn’t know what else to do with it. That’s okay and I am fine with that. Nevertheless I did feel a little lighter trashing that post. Does anyone else do this?
jmgoyder 