When I was in high school my sexuality was private, I never made it everyone’s business and I went to big gay dance parties in the late 80s and so everyone assumed I must be gay. The girls in high school who did like me were not part of my circles and the girls in my circles were not interested in me. It was quite late in my high school years that I finally had a girlfriend and we were a good fit at that time for a few years.

In University some people once again assumed I must be gay and eventually I met a lovely girl and we had a fiery relationship for a few years but it was mostly fun. I suppose I never made an effort to highlight my personal persuasions when I was younger and I didn’t really care much about other people’s private lives. Here I am on a public platform talking about private things right now but I still feel that I don’t need to define or highlight any particular issues.

Mostly the only consumption of this blog is a small amount of people and a bunch of bots trawling the internet. On social media and on a few platforms people will take sides on a sort of roller coaster ride of anti or pro sexual stances. Platforms can highlight a huge array of opinions and stances on many subjects. Some content is sponsored, some is not and people for example who may be anti trans for instance or pro trans will post stories that are like a barrage of publicised privacy.

I don’t know how people can post so much content in one day as stories normally only last 24 hours. For one the information in the story is only a snippet of a video which is normally only a little longer than the original snippet. Not a lot of the stuff makes a lot of sense on its own, the context can be there but sometimes it isn’t obvious. The general understanding is you are actively being a supporter or non supporter of whatever the main theme is. 

What gets me is the people who are anti whatever or pro whatever are actually posting content about what they dislike as though seeing it displayed makes them feel validated. Yet really they are actively promoting what they dislike unwittingly. I see more content on some of these serial posters about what they dislike than I see sponsored by who they dislike. In a way they are creating a conflict with themselves because they are actively making themselves and others watch what they don’t want themselves or other people to see.

Why would you post things you don’t like? The answer is exposure, it is generally thought that if you expose something a magical wand will make it all good again as you band together with like minded people and point out the bad apples. I remember a self help guru type saying that if you saw a movie you didn’t like, the best thing would be not to watch it again but some people will keep watching the same movie as though something is going to change that will make it good or lead to a final validation.

In a way people are like points on a map, they inhabit a particular part of space and time, another way to think of humanity is as many doors or gates. The eyes are a window to the soul, there are billions of eyes not seeing the same things, the world goes in and the soul comes out. If you want to find the final answer, the final form, the truth, each gate (human) leads to a different part of the map. Any set of ideas can be found on the map, arguing about ideas is like arguing about parts of the map. Every part of the map is different.

Essentially every one has to exist separately in the world which can also be mapped, if you went to another part of the world for example ‘do as the Romans do’ as your ideas and beliefs are foreign. It can work the same socio-economically, by locale or even by household. If you are looking for sameness or simply looking for a scapegoat, you just hate X or Y don’t promote what you dislike and post about it like you’re obsessed with some other place you don’t even exist within. Probably better to stick to what you know and love so the positives can grow in your own life. Otherwise all you have is aggregation and digital point scoring and the only people who benefit are tech billionaires.

Some people chant mantras to fortify their position and bring order to their lives but normally it is to connect with something you like or want to attain. Public Enemy will address what they don’t like but in a way that strengthens their position only to overcome it, but normally is about who has the power and why they need to overcome it to prosper. They at least have a leg to stand on because it isn’t about weaponizing their personal preferences or private matters that aren’t their business. If you think that someone else has power over you in the bedroom or is dictating an agenda, remember where you are, are you in public or the bedroom? If there is something in public space you don’t like or feel threatened by, don’t post about it on social media a million times, remember you are allowed to ignore it and move on.

An advertisement on the street can’t bust down your bedroom door or come to get you, whatever you feel threatened by only grows exponentially when it goes onto a platform. Take domestic violence, it is deplorable and we all want it to end. If 1000 women a day die at the hands of domestic violence you have to choose how you address it and it has to be clear and concise. If you were to just say I hate it and say all men are murderers (which is totally understandable) the risk you run is to make it grow exponentially in internet traffic terms and it looks like every woman in the whole country is threatened and going to die at the hands of their spouse. At the same time the risk is there so it is probably better to address warning signs of abuse and provide services to address it.

In real terms you can’t ring the anti or pro hotline of personal preferences, what would the world be coming to is that was the case. I don’t really have any answers but rather than fortifying your position allow yourself room to move and grow. Otherwise you are just following internet traffic and orchestrating it.