I have spent the past several months on hiatus from writing about various conversations that I have engaged in for this Creating a Nation United. I wouldn’t say that the experience has been wholly negative but it has been frequently discouraging. After not writing about these interactions, I decided that I also needed to take a break in general from continuing previous conversations or creating any new connections. After a few weeks of negligence, my overall mental and physical drive had significantly dwindled.
Despite the 103 people I had reached out to since January 23, the majority either did not respond or did so with such vehemence that I do not pursue further conversation. A small minority had demonstrated a willingness to engage; but as the conversation continued, their rigidness and tendency toward insults grew.
Creating connections and relationships with strangers via the internet take time. Research takes time. Compassionate communication takes time. I was speaking with my partner about my desire to simply put an end to the project and, rather than submit to the notion of failure, he told me to write about it.
This is where I switch from past to present tense.
Over the next few weeks, that is what I plan to do. I would like to share the discouraging and “failed” conversations. There is no way of measuring my impact on these individuals over the long run as I have yet to decide whether or not to return to their conversations after a prolonged break in communications. Personally, I can speak for my own understanding and have continued to learn information about myself and our society in each individual interaction that occurs. I work to subscribe to the philosophy that individual experiences create change as those experiences develop and reach beyond the individual; individual change begets societal change…
And we have to start somewhere…..
Creating A Nation United 