Gaining a Sense of Peace

I have often said to not reward bad behavior.  So I quit coming to dkos several days ago.  

The ad darkening obsession and the rationalization that all is well here because the hits and the new members is so high made me realize that as an Obama supporter who does not buy into the politics of hate, I needed to walk away.  My hitting the site was in itself approving the enviroment here and I really no longer do.  I saw the occasional diary asking in different ways or words for the quality of discourse to improve, to 'simmer down'.  But these diaries quickly fade without making an impact.

GBCW is not my intention.  I am not saying good-bye.  I am just changing the channel.

My political views are not evolving over this election cycle.  I am supporting and voting for Obama, come what may.  So coming here to find out more about a particular candidate is no longer a good reason.  There are the other diaries.  There are some great diaries that I click the links on, where I think about what they say later on in the day and maybe share that information or viewpoint with a co-worker, but most of these are cross posted in other places where I don't have to fight through all the other stuff to get to them.  And most of the breaking news here is rewrites of Huff or some other internet news service, except where the original story is there are not five two paragraph versions of them to sort through.  So I do not feel less informed.  

I do miss the pooties already.  There are some folks here that I do not see else where that I have already grown to care about.  I am hopeful some of them will come to Netroots in July and I will get the opportunity to get to know them better then.

But here is what I did not expect.  I am calmer now.  I am less irritable with my family and at work.  I did not realize how the tenseness here was bleeding into my daily life.  I guess that is what I am here to share.  

You can be knowledgeable about good and bad things happening in the world around you without being negative.  You can talk about these things and even take action to improve the world while being a positive force.

There are places where the calm discussion of ideas is commonplace and you don't have to worry about hitting the cancel button after making a statement because you don't want to get piled on or told you are stupid.  Or where you have to reword your thought multiple times trying to take anything that might be offensive to some candidate supporter.  There are places where you rarely regret hitting the show me more button on a diary.

If you don't like the enviroment, change the channel.