-or- a liberating feeling
For my first year here on JU I avoided using the blacklist. To be honest, it is largely because I don't attract the attention of some of the more contentious factions of our cyber-community here. But it was also out of some sense of having a high level of tolerance, of being able to "deal with it" or tolerate any behavior that might come my way.
Last night, as my wife an I sat in another training session for our new role as therapeutic foster parents we had an interesting discussion about tolerance and how it relates to our roles in this capacity.
Much to my surprise, we were instructed that having a high tolerance level would not only make our duties more difficult, but it would also make us less effective. We were told that if we start to feel burned out one of the first things to examine was if our tolerance level had risen too high.
Simply keeping quiet and tolerating bad behavior will only lead to more problems. We will eventually boil over and the eruption will be far worse than any efforts we might make to be uptight and strict. Suddenly a light came on. There are too many things in my life I have been tolerating, things I simply don't need to. And this has nothing to do with tolerating persons, beliefs, religions, etc. Rather it has to do with tolerating behavior.
And so I have elected to activate my blacklist in a pre-emptive manner. There are some regulars here who I see no reason to tolerate. It has nothing to do with their views, but it has to do with their behavior. They have exhibited behavior I find distasteful and that I am not going to tolerate in any way, shape or form on my blog. They can be idiots all they want on their own and other's, but no longer here.
So if you try to post, and find you cannot, now you know why: you have acted in a puerile manner and are not welcome here. Have a great day.