Acceptance

The fish came in with the curve of the wave. Surprised, he found himself lodged in the rocks and sand, caught on shore.

It was his curiosity that drew him too close to the edge of the water – the draw of the alluring world above his own. The strange water with the shining globe, and the mysterious fish that were clad in strange blocks of scales that hung loosely from their bones.

The same fish that swam on long split fins, upright instead of forward, as well as the funny, smaller ones that swam next to them on four long, thin fins, with an extra one sweeping out behind them. Those fish had funny scales, too; instead of the bright colors of the tall upright fish, they had scales the colors of the sand and rocks, and hung from their bodies like the fringed kelp of the ocean floor.

It was a world different than what the fish had always known – it seemed more open. Larger. Clearer. Brighter and far more exciting. Oh, he had been warned by his friends and family not to go beyond the edges of where the waves curled – that to do so was the risk of danger. But the draw had always been strong, and each day the fish had grown more courageous and daring as he swam closer to get a better view.

It seemed silly, to him, the danger. The world above seemed gentle and open for exploration.

After all, he sometimes saw the tall strange fish in the water, sometimes in proper scales that clung to their body as they slipped through the water – or other times, wearing large kelp bulbs on their backs that seemed to be their gills for breathing. And so, it had seemed to him, that if those fish could swim in his world – why couldn’t he swim in theirs?

Another wave reached for the fish to pull him back; but in the receding tide its grasp was too short. Panicked, the fish flopped and strained to reach the next wave – but couldn’t. He gulped at the strange, thin water around him. But instead of filling his lungs with cool relief, it felt like burning sand in his gills.

Again the sea reached for its friend, desperate to pull it home, but could only brush its fingertips over the fish’s lithe body. Panic mewling in its mind and veins, the fish jumped as best he could, hoping to push himself into closer range, but the effort was useless. The sand in his gills scraped and clawed, driving his terror deeper into him.

He knew, now, the truth behind his friends’ and family’s warnings of going to near the edge of the water, that it was dangerous and one that should be forgotten. It was cruel – hot and burning and made of thin, stifling water. He knew, now, that the world from which he’d come was no longer within his reach.

And yet, this new world was lovely. The blue of the water above him was brilliant, unlike any color he could find at home. The bright globe – though hot and searing on the his scales – was no longer diffused and shafted as it was beneath the water. It wasn’t broken and dappled – instead, it was a single light of breathtaking solitude. The sounds around him, though confusing and loud, were rich and beautiful, deeply unlike the yawning, boring, quiet that he was used to, punctuated by the occasional splash and whale song.

The fish’s panic receded, and dissolved into the call of the waves. He felt his breath returning to him has he let go of the desperation to breathe in the scratchy, thin water around him. The radiance and luster of the world around him felt like a shepherd.

A last dart of fear and longing slipped through the fish as he thought of his friends and family swimming in the cold, dark deep that was now just beyond his reach.

But, then, a cool current slipped over his scales. He was swimming again! He was certain of this, despite the rough tug and scrape of the sand and rocks beneath him. He smiled as he felt his gills slip into cool calmness as breath returned to him again; the bright globe above him no longer felt hot and greedy on his scales. Instead, it was as gentle as the velvet cool of his old world – just as he had always thought this world would be. The light around him became diffused, almost dim. Soft and tranquil.

He heard the sea cry out to him once more, begging him to swim towards it, but the fish ignored it, and chose, instead, the acceptance of his passage into this extraordinary world.

I Give the Coder a C++

There are days when I wonder about technology.

Has it improved our lives? Certainly. I won’t argue with that. Computers, for the most part, are marvelous inventions and do make our lives much easier. Walt, a good friend of mine, recently purchased a nifty little gadget for $15 – a travel alarm clock that runs on tiny batteries and updates itself by using a GPS-like connection so it always reads the right time. My VCR does something like that as well; once the power comes back on, it sets the clock itself. I love it.

But there are times I want to reach in and tear apart the computer with which I’m working and beat it senseless with its own hard drive.

My favorites are when I’m searching for a customer and our database kindly tells me that no such person exists – even though I know they do. Then, finally, after some random, extremely broad search string I’ll find the person – name, address, phone number and email address all identical to what I’d been trying.

Or like the time, back when I was still using Internet Explorer as my browser, I typed in www.defleppard.com in the address bar and I was told by the window that sprang up:

“We’re sorry. We could not find www.defleppard.com. Could you have possibly meant www.defleppard.com?”

Why, yes, actually, I did! Thanks for pointing that out to me!

Or like today when I called a number to have my name removed for 5 years from “prescreened” lists of insurance and credit card offers and the like. I had to speak into the phone, and the computer had to guess what I was saying; I was warned at the beginning that no live person was reachable.

Once I got past the “Would you like English or Spanish?” it went downhill.

The “conversation” went something like this:

“Please say your name so that I can record it. Wait for the tone!” The voice of my new friend was extremely perky and very female; it sounded like a “live” voice, as in one that had been recorded by a “real” person. But the person to whom it belonged sounded as if, at least during the recording, she’d had a plastic-happy grin permanently sutured to her vocal chords.

(The only relief in the moment was that she didn’t say, “How are we doing today? Please wait for the tone so that we can record!”)

(Bong!) “Heather Self,” I said.

(Bleeps and bloops.) “Thank you. I heard Heather Sleffler. Is this correct?”

Blink. Um.…

“No.”

“I’m sorry,” said the female voice, sliding with a smile crafted in a C&H Factory. “Let’s try again. Remember – you do not have to spell your name. At the tone, say it again.”

(Bong!) “Heather Self.” I made certain to enunciate precisely this time, syllables as crisp and clean as if I’d cut them from paper.

“Thank you! I heard Heather Sowelcha. Is that correct?”

“No!”

“I’m sorry. Let’s try again. Remember – don’t spell the name. Just say it clearly. At the tone, please speak your name.”

(Bong!) “Hea-THUR SelFUH!” I said, enunciating more. You couldn’t get more crispness in a starch factory.

“Thank you. I heard Heather Slaffla. Is this correct?”

My shoulders slumped. I knew it was going to be bad as the call had effectively just begun and my patience was already as thin as cheap facial tissue – and not much stronger. “No!”

“I’m sorry. Let’s try again.” After another long, perky-happy warning about not spelling any letters or words (I didn’t know you could spell a letter, actually, until that moment) the bong! came again.

“Hea-th-err Ssss-eelll-phphphfffffff,” I said, hoping slowly would be better. At this moment a co-worker walked passed, expression furrowed with confused amusment as they glanced at me over their shoulder.

“Thank you. I heard Helarra Felsepha. Is this correct?”

(Muffled grunt from me.) “NO!”

“I’m sorry. This time, please spell your name. Please make certain to speak clearly so that I can understand you. Wait for the tone.”

(Bong!) “H----E----A----T----H----E----R….S----E----L----F.” I was careful to make each letter clean, sharp and spaced with a pause, hoping the computer with the I.Q. of a grasshopper could finally understand me.

“Thank you. I heard Aychel, Eee, Aye, Tee, Ahelata, Eeer, Ar, Efff, Eeeah, Elda, essA. Is this correct?”

(In the immortal words of Dave Barry, “I’m NOT making this up!”)

“NO!” I said, having to curb a grunt-like scream. I couldn’t understand where the computer was even coming up with the “letters” and how it could be mishearing me so badly. Three times later, each try more mangling than the last, the daisy-happy voice said, “I’m sorry. Let’s try your city so that I can find you that way. Please state your ZIP code.”

(Bong!) I did.

“I heard Ninety thousand AY-be five Torrence, California. Is this correct?”

(Sigh.) “…No.”

“I’m sorry. Let’s try again.”

I said my ZIP code again, and, miraculously, she placed me in Portland, Oregon. “Now,” she said. “Please state your mailing address. Wait for the tone!”

(Bong!) I stated my address.

The first time I heard, “Thank you. I heard 9 thousand Aaybell 5-oh-90” – [garbled sound] “—Ekka Ceraderaba Hillocha Boulevard number twelve thousand OH NINE OH AY AY AY six, Portland, Or-y-gon. Is this correct?”

I think my forehead has a dent in it where the heel of my hand hit it. I don’t think any amount of meditation could cure the frustration that had begun to boil up in me. But at least she had me in the right city and state.

Another three times later, my address sounded like I had a tidy little condo somewhere on Jupiter. Or, apparently, what was actually coming out of my mouth wasn’t English, but a bizarre hybrid of Swahili and Russian, with a bit of good old-fashioned Pig Latin thrown in just to spice things up.

You’d think it would simply record my voice saying the words (which I’ve done before and is delightfully easy for both the person leaving the message, and likely the person receiving it), rather than trying to do tone / syllable recognition.

But that would be far too easy. Why make things easy when they could be difficult?

A headache and one set of nicely-ground teeth later, the computer said, “I’m sorry. But I cannot understand what you’re trying to tell me. I will now attempt to look you up by your birth date and social security number.” I did so by punching in the corresponding numbers, and apparently the computer found me, because after a moment of bleeping and blooping at me quietly, the female voice said, “Thank you. You have now been removed from the lists for five years.”

It’s these moments where I wonder about “technology” and I find myself thinking of Perry Mason. He had a super-successful law practice that ran smoothly; between Della Street, his assistant, Gerdie, his receptionist and Paul Drake, his private detective, he spent nine years winning every case but one (and rumor has it two.)

And all without a computer.

Oh, I know the reasoning behind having such a message machine in place. It’s available 24 hours a day and can even have the claim of being more cost efficient than a human. But when the damn thing can’t even understand simple syllables (it’s not like my name is Heleakela’uakka Selfindonopolisadonna, for Pete’s sake), it seems like a waste of effort.

Or just really shoddy programming.

I truly hope that, in some random moment in the future, I’m not having a pleasant conversation with some nice guy who mentions, “Oh, I’m the one who invented the voice-recognition software used for messages!”

He’d likely end up with a martini glass-shaped Adam’s apple.

So maybe I’m not as progressive as I’d like to think. I guess I still have one foot in the 20^th Century; I am, after all, a hybrid child.

I still mail in my taxes rather than e-filing. I still have cassettes for some things. I still record on a VCR rather than a digital recorder. I still listen to a CD player at the gym (albeit a CD player that also plays MP3s…but only if they’re on a CD) rather than an MP3 player. I still listen to records – as in those endangered species things made from black vinyl shaped like a big pancake.

I grew up playing video games with my friends as well as Cowboys and Indians in the street later that evening. I had roller skates – the clamp-on kind that you fit around your sneakers. I remember when phone calls were 10 cents and were placed on payphones that had dials (remember the feeling? Turn-zzzip, clickclickclickclick; turn-zzzzip, clickclickclick). I used to watch TV on a black and white set. I remember when AM stations were more predominant than FM.

But, as a minor side note, I do realize that stamps have never been cheap; there is a certain lucidness to cost effectiveness as I learned once when I thought I’d be cute and romantic and mail my mother a card I’d made – from hour house…back to our house.

“You mailed this?!” she said as she went through the mail at the box.

“Yes,” I replied, feeling quite pleased with myself.

She waved it in the air. “This cost 15 cents! You could have just put it in the box for me to find!”

“But it’s not the same!”

“Or you could have just tried to mail it and it would have come back for insufficient funds!”

“But – it wouldn’t be the same! I wanted to surprise you!”

(I think there was a muffled grunt of frustration from her at this point. I do know there was some hand-covering of the eyes involved.) “Just…don’t use a stamp next time.”

I felt miffed. Hurt that my little surprise had fallen so flat. But I hadn’t quite grasped that whole thing of being cost effective yet.

Now I just send my mother an email. But it’s…just not the same.

So it wasn’t cost effective to mail something from my doorstep back to my doorstep, given all the man power that went into completing the loop. Just as it isn’t cost effective to have “real” people taking my information. But, apparently, there’s a similar amount / kind / style of frustration involved.

But it’s just not the same as talking to a live person who can understand e-nun-cee-ay-shon.

So I’ve moved forward…sort of.

I know technology’s good and fun and fabulous in its own right. It just seems, however, in some cases at least, it’s like mailing yourself back to yourself; there’s got to be an easier way…and one that’s perhaps even more cost effective.

– Heatheroramadamakadakka Seliodamawaggacoochoo (at least according to my energetic computer companion.)

Testing...Testing...1-2-3

Yes, I’m still here! And yes, I basically stole your headline, Andrew.

I could give the usual shtick of being busy, blah, blah, blah. But while that’s true – it’s also that I haven’t really had anything to write about. It has been very busy, though; my best friend came to visit for a few days before Christmas, then it was Christmas, then we had a four day work week following that which was busy. Then along came New Year’s (I spent it with friends from work), followed by probably the busiest four day week we’ve had in a while.

I actually only worked a half day on Friday, simply because I was not feeling well at all; I nearly passed out in the shower, then began feeling well enough to go to work. But because I didn’t trust myself to drive, I had a coworker come and get me; but by eleven that morning it was clear I was fading and went home. After about an hour of Perry Mason, I crashed and woke up to find that not only had I taken after my father by falling asleep for the last ten minutes, it was well into the next episode (channel 12 runs two Perry Mason shows back-to-back every week day.)

I peeled my contacts off, made myself a light lunch, then spent the rest of the afternoon dozing on the couch. By four I felt much better, and had one of those thick headaches that come from lethargy. I haven’t been getting to the gym as often as I’d like recently, and then not moving for several hours will do it to you every time.

This time of the year is usually a kind of odd time for me; for some reason, for most of my adult life – well at least the last four or five years – Christmas Day has felt like the end of the year for me, and then I go into a kind of emotional limbo for the week up until New Year’s. It’s like I go inward and am doing some kind of (sub)conscious inventory of what I’ve done for the last year. I made a resolution several years ago not to make New Year’s resolutions ever again, and so far I’ve kept it.

But this year I didn’t really do that. Things slowed for me a bit inwardly, but I didn’t get the sense of being in limbo. I’ll admit it did feel like things have been / are / will be changing for me (for various reasons), but it hasn’t been the sense of a dramatic shut down / restart as I’ve felt in recent years.

A few of you reading this have been privy to some of the stranger shifts and turns I’ve been feeling for the last year or so; emotionally I’ve been going through some hefty maneuverings starting a year ago October. I alluded to some of it in a couple of postings; that’s settled down quite a bit, and there’s a lot more calm to what came about and what I’ve been starting to understand about myself, where I’ve come from – and where I’m going. And even who’s likely to be involved.

The question now is how to pull it all together. But I get the sense I’m on the right path. The confusion, I realize now, came from my being unaccepting of what I was discovering about myself. It just didn’t seem possible...and yet, there it was, time and time again. And it’s still there.

All in all, I really feel like I’m truly starting to head into the person I was meant to be and the things I’m meant to do, and I’m truly resolved to letting it just unfold as it needs to and be responsible for keeping the momentum going.

And that’s a great way to begin the New Year.

Happiness to you all!

There Are Worse Things I Coud Do....

….And maybe not.

Ever have one of those moments of pure, undiluted embarrassment where you swear you could curl up and fit yourself into a paper towel tube?

I had one of those this morning.

Some of you reading this have already been privy to it, but I felt I had to write about it. It happened a couple of hours ago, but I still feel bad.

There's a guy here at work that occasionally comes in and smells a little stale...like he hasn't really bathed in a few days. Not stinky, just like he hasn't really sudsed up enough, or just thought that because he hadn’t been active in a day or so that bathing wasn’t needed. Plus his clothes sometimes have that

stale smell like they've been wadded up and not washed for awhile, or even slept in for a few days. Like he wore the t-shirt and sweatpants to bed for a few nights, then got up too late to change – or just didn’t see the point.

He doesn’t reek or stink; my friend and co-worker Keith and I used to work with a guy at Stream who smelled utterly rotten. Like his own body odor and oils had soured and gone bad. I thought he had dark brown hair, until one day he came in, oddly and surprisingly washed, and I discovered his hair was actually basically blond. He always seemed to wear the same pants (which had greasy marks on his thighs, like he wiped his hands there) and the same two or three shirts.

I once had a three week training with him and had to sit next to him. After three days I went to the instructor (one of the managers for the team I worked on) and said, “You have to let me move to another seat.”

And he knew I was serious. He tried to smother a laugh and be serious, but his eyes were sparking with too much humor when he said, “I can’t let you do that. Besides it can’t be that bad.”

“Clearly you haven’t gotten within 10 feet of him,” I said.

“He smells, I’ll give you that, but it’s not so bad you can’t sit next to him.”

“Clint,” I said, “if you don’t let me change seats I’m filing a complaint for inhuman working standards.”

He laughed and let me move down a seat or two – then to try to prove a point, he sat between the guy and me. He moved after a few minutes back to the front of the room; later, he pulled me aside and said, “Heather, you’re right. It is that bad.”

My co-worker at Stream was spoken to several times, and was eventually fired for his personal hygiene habits – or non-habits, really. The thing was, he was a nice enough guy, but you had to wonder about the mental stability of someone who couldn’t grasp the concept of bathing daily and putting on clean clothes.

So granted, things could be worse.

My fellow co-worker here just occasionally smells a bit (though pungently) stale. He’s a downright rose garden compared to that other fellow.

I have a feeling you might be surmising what happened. So on to what caused me to want to stuff myself into a paper towel tube and wait for a strong wind to roll me away.

I know my co-worker here has been having a rough time personally, and when things like that happen, it can make simple things really difficult – even washing clothes and bathing. But still; it’s something that – at least in our culture – is expected in polite company. For lack of a better way to put it.

It’s been going on for awhile, and apparently a couple of other co-workers have been telling our manager something needs to be said for quite some time, but he hasn’t. Granted, I completely understand it’s an embarrassing, uncomfortable thing to discuss with someone – especially when it’s someone you really like. But the longer something that someone truly needs to know is put off it can build into a potentially humiliating moment for all involved.

Yes, that’s where I come in.

I stepped out of my cube just as my co-worker turned and walked down the hall leading to his cube; he was approximately 10-15 feet ahead of me and I got a whiff of stale clothing.

When I got back to my desk, I opened up a chat window to talk to Keith (my friend from Stream who now works with me here again). Here’s what I said: Bleah. [ ] smells like he's wearing clothes he hasn't washed in a while and as slept in. They have that stale smell.

Keith didn’t reply, which I thought was odd.

Then, to my ultimate horror I saw why: I’d pulled up the chat window for the co-worker, not Keith.

I felt utterly, completely mortified.

I’d feel bad even if it had been someone I didn’t like (that once happened to me in college; I said something about a girl in the dorm I didn’t like, and it got back to her. She confronted me about it and I felt awful; it made me very mindful about gossiping of any kind, especially around potential grapevines.)

Immediately, I said to my co-worker, “I’m so sorry! I’m totally humiliated!”

He wrote back, “You should be embarrassed. Given you haven’t even been near me at all this morning.”

I wasn’t going to try to explain what had happened, given I was already choking on my own ankle. And I sure can’t blame him for being snarky with his reply. I likely would be, too.

But I guess it was meant to happen. At least he knows now -- if not in a kind manner. I just wish he’d been spoken to earlier (by the proper people) so that the potential for something like this had been eradicated.

I apologized profusely, I know he knows I feel bad – and my manager’s going to follow up with him, too. At least it’s happening on a Friday and not a Monday; I guess the Universe manages to hand out small favors from time to time!

But, dear God in Heaven – why did it have to be me that passed along the information?!

I know he’ll (eventually) get over it; we’re friends. And I’ll (eventually) get over the knot of humiliation that’s still slapping around in me. It just came at a really bad time for him, given everything else that’s going on in his life at the moment.

Somehow, though, I don’t think overhearing, “You stink” at any time in your life is a fun thing.

I’m laughing at myself now (though I still feel bad for my co-worker), so at least I’m feeling better about it. But if you see a paper towel tube rolling by later today and see a corner of a denim jacket sticking out of it – that’s just me. I’ll be sure to wave if I can get my arm out.

That way you can hand me some salt to go with my foot; it has a rather bland taste to it this morning.

Common Courtesy No Longer Seems to be Common

Those of you who are familiar with my job know I deal with a lot of email. The overall term for my job is “customer service”, and we do a damnably good job at that, but the main course of my job is working as a life coach.

If you’re unfamiliar with that (beyond the psycho “life coach” personified on last season’s Nip/Tuck), what we essentially do is to help people learn how to move forward in their lives, past what they feel is keeping them from creating roadblocks to doing so. We do spend some time going into someone’s past, but, unlike a psychologist that aids someone in healing past traumas, we help people in moving forward.

There is a lot of psychology involved in my job, certainly, and it’s tough some days dealing with so many people’s issues.

Don’t get me wrong – I love my job, even though it can be quite draining at times. I love the feeling I get on the phone when someone makes a shift and goes away feeling like they’ve got the capability to move past whatever prompted the call. I do much of my job through email – which can make it harder because there’s no intonation in voices and no immediate feedback I can get from someone for questions. But even that is very rewarding and I do it very well.

I know my job deals with a sector of humanity that feels broken and as if they need to be fixed; many of the people who call are dysfunctional in many ways, and they can be quite difficult to deal with at times. But they’re coming to us for help and anyone who’s ever been involved in any form of personal growth will know it’s not easy to start creating the life you want.

Most people who contact us are gracious and kind and willing to do the work. They may call and be frustrated or grumpy – even to the point of anger – about something, but with some patience and understanding from our end, 99 times out of 100 that person goes away with the issue taken care of (or with better understanding how to work on it more on their own). They may not be happy at the end of the call or at the end of the email exchanges, but at least they go away satisfied. I can pretty much turn anyone around – even outright rude people.

But every once in awhile a customer will cross my path that hits on a nerve.

I understand that the way we run our company will not be to everyone’s liking. One of the things we do is send out information about other personal growth programs that people might like, along with lots of information about our program in general. It can be rather overwhelming, especially for someone who’s new to the program, and likely feeling rather swamped and stressed by life as it is. It can occasionally elicit a sense of insulted rage in someone, and we frequently get requests from people to remove them from our mailing lists.

We understand, and we’re happy to oblige.

Most people who write in may sound somewhat harassed (which I can understand), but aren’t rude or jerks about it. It’s possible to be upset – even enraged about something – but still be polite. But in the example of an email I got the other day, apparently that concept is beyond the understanding of some people.

One of the functions of my job is that I receive all of the support email that comes into the company. This means I have to cull and sort through a hundred or so emails – or more – a day; I cull out the spam and other junk email, then parcel out the email to the rest of the team. But I do most of it. The questions can vary from, “What’s the price of the next level?” to “My father is very overbearing; how can I deal with him?” As well as the request for removal from our mailing lists.

Yesterday, one of the first emails I came to was such a request. Most people write in and, as I said, are very polite in their requests. Oh, they may say something like, “Take me off your stupid mailing list. You send out too much crap,” but at least it’s done in a politely irritated manner. I don’t mind those.

But I got one that really struck a nerve. The subject was: “Automated SPAM CRAP!” and the body of the email was essentially this:

“Please take me off your fabulous automatic support inquisition program
OKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKO
OKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOOKKOOKOKOK
OKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOK
iTS COUNTER PRODUCTIVE TO THE SONIC MIND SOOTHING
PROGRAMS YOU HUSTLE, ESPECIALLY IF YOU WANT TO SELL THEM
dONT ANSWER THIS JUST F...ING STOP.”

I paused at the last line, both surprised -- and not, as well as apalled -- and not.

Usually I let that type of emails go as it's not worth my time and energy to reply. But this time I didn't. I wrote back:

“Hello,

Thank you for your email.

We would be glad to take you off our list.

However, when making a request to us, please do us the courtesy of speaking to us in a similar manner by which you would wish to be treated.

We value all of our customers and their wishes, but I'm certain that you'd likely prefer not to be sworn at when a request is being made of you.

Regards,

Heather Self
Support Team Coach”

His reply:

“Get over it (please.)”

On one hand, yes, he has a point.

But on the other, he doesn't.

It both enraged and saddened me. Enraged me because he was an insulting jerk, but saddened me because he likely didn’t have the ability to realize that what he’d done was insulting and was appalling. I find it very saddening and frustrating that we live in a world where so many people think that it’s okay to treat people in that manner, that we have somehow found it okay to teach ourselves – and other people – that this is acceptable. When truly, it isn’t.

Had he had me face to face or even on the phone he likely would not have spoken in that manner (though one time I did have a man speak to me in exactly that manner and what I said to him was – in an extremely polite tone, “Sir, I realize you’re very frustrated and I would be, too. But what makes you think I’d be willing to do anything for you with the way you’re treating me? I’d be willing to guess that if I were coming into your store and were treating you in this same way you’d kick me out.” He paused, blustered a bit, and then said, “Oh…I’m sorry.” We had a good call after that).

But in this day and age when so much can and is done by email, it seems that manners don’t need to exist.

You get angry, you can shoot off an angry and insulting email because you’re doing it through a machine so it doesn’t matter, right?

Well, to all the people out there who believe this: I’m sorry, but no. You’re wrong. There’s still a human being on the other computer getting your email.

Computers and emails and the Internet are amazing, incredible tools that I’m extremely thankful for. But there’s a dynamic creeping into our culture that’s worrisome to me at times. We can order groceries online, clothes, music, correspondence, school and jobs online. There’s no reason for us to leave the house, really, except for the (rare) occasions we want some human interaction.

But what happens is that because so much of our lives have been “defaced”, we seem to forget how to have that human interaction. There’s a an accepted rudeness that I see creeping in everywhere – from emails like the one above, to the chatterboxes at movie theaters that have forgotten that we aren’t in their living rooms where it’s okay to yak away about the lawyer’s tie or clomp around and announce they need food and to go to the bathroom.

And don’t get me started about the woman behind me in the line at the grocery store, happily chatting away on her cell phone to a friend about co-workers and an upcoming surgery she was going to have – in detail.

Along with that accepted rudeness there’s a counterbalancing accepted unawareness that people have donned to make the rudeness okay and acceptable.

You know, like the idiot at the movie theater who answered his phone in the middle of the film – and said to his friend, “Yeah, dude. I’m at the movie. It’s pretty cool.” And then went on to tell his friend about it – just in case those of us around him hadn’t caught onto the fact we’d been following along pretty well.

I was about to tell him to shut up when a guy in the row in front of me turned around and said, “Dude, if you don’t turn that thing off – !”

The guy on the phone looked around, suddenly aware of where he was and hung up quite quickly. But glared at us as if we were the jerks.

So sorry. Next time we’ll be more mindful that our film watching won’t get in the way of your phone chatting.

I realize that a lot of this has been around for as long as there have been people. And I’m not blaming computers per se, but having come from an era where there weren’t computers in every household to an era where that is the norm, I’ve definitely seen a shift in human dynamics. It’s sad and unfortunate.

I don’t mean sad as in “pathetic” – I mean sad as in it hurts my heart.

Like I said, I’m grateful for computers. I can chat with friends and family daily and not have to rack up phone bills – though I do miss hearing their voices. I have vast amounts of more information about things I never knew I needed at my fingertips. The computer and its cousin the Internet are incredible tools that should be celebrated. But as with any tool, it can be abused. And it's our responsibility not to do that.

I just wish the dryness I sense at times wasn’t there, seeping into our culture like stale smoke from a slowly dying campfire. Granted, most emails I get from participants are warm and open and provide a quick and easy means for people to get the support they need – especially when they live overseas.

But it’s the other extreme that’s so frustrating. I’m usually able to let emails like that one go pretty easily. Sometimes I can’t. Sometimes they stick with me and it does become something personal and I feel challenged.

The funny thing is, it’s not really that I feel personally insulted, it’s more that the anger and hurt comes from what people like that are doing to themselves. Clearly that person is hurting deeply inside somewhere and has some serious issues that are hindering him from having the kind of life he wants. And he’s coming to (or trying to, at least) us for help. But he’s so lost in his own frustration he can’t see that it’s his own creation.

That was my hope, really, in why I replied to him. I was trying to be a mirror to him – as the term goes – to reflect back some of that so that he could possibly see it. But he’s not in a position in his life to accept the responsibility for his behavior; to him, swearing and cursing and rudeness are okay because he’s been personally affronted, and I’m the idiot because I’m not seeing it as acceptable.

I never will, and I’ll never understand why people will continue to think that such behavior is. What kind of world do we live in where we’re teaching people – allowing ourselves to be taught – that manners are unacceptable and stupid?

Right now, thinking about it I’m just shaking my head. My heart does go out to him, even though there’s a part of me that really wanted to write back and say, “Do you really think that it’s okay to treat someone with such rudeness? How would you like it if I treated you the same way?” There was a part of me that really wanted to write back and rip him a new one, as the phrase goes, using the same kind of tone – and words – he used with us.

But, of course, I can’t, because that’s counterproductive. I can’t change him. All I can do is provide the mirror for reflection; it’s up to him to look, and right now he’s in a place in his life where he’d rather be blind and blame me for his rude behavior.

And he’s welcome to do that.

Part of my frustration is how people like him can’t see that all their pain and suffering is of their own creation. You do get back what you give out, but so many people can’t see that. To him, it’s my company’s fault he’s insulted and so that means it’s not his problem he’s being rude. He’s not in a place in life to see that he’s choosing to react that way, and therefore creating much of the frustration he’s having in life.

And part of it is that somehow we’ve learned that it’s just us in the world. We see and speak to the other whatever-billion people that walk the face of the planet, but it’s like we forget they exist and that we’re part of a whole, not single units shuffling around, only responsible for ourselves, viewing life through self-centered filters. There are other people involved in our lives that we affect. But somehow many of us have forgotten this. I'm guilty of this on occasion; we all are. It's a human trait to do so.

It's when it becomes a habit -- the norm of our lives -- that it becomes unhealthy.

You may be writing your email or thoughts on a machine, but once you hit send – they land in the lap and emotions of someone whole and just as organic and real as you.

Life can be exasperating.

There’s always going to be things we dislike, people we find rude, things we find insulting and annoying. But it’s how we choose to react to those things that creates the amount of pain and aggravation we have in our life. I know I'm the one choosing to be annoyed by the email and the cell phone cows of the world.

We don’t have to like everything in life or pooh-pooh it; but we can have different reactions to those annoyances that make all the difference in the world. I took the opportunity to hold up a mirror to that man, but he simply chose not to see it.

Honestly, if he were to call and I got him on the phone and knew it was him, I’d treat him with the same kind of compassion as if he were completely anonymous. My role isn’t to force people into seeing what they’re doing; they have to do that for themselves. But they also have to be ready; that man wasn’t.

But to that man: I really hope you find what you’re looking for. I’d be willing to bet you’re actually a pretty decent guy who’s just having a truckload of frustrations in life that’s apparently creating a lot of pain and anger. I don’t know you, I don’t know who you are, but I’m sorry that you seem to have a life where that kind of behavior is seen as acceptable. I might have that same kind of attitude. I hope that someday you have a life that’s relatively free of the suffering and frustration that generated your email.

I’d even like to be the person that helps you learn how to have such a life.

Be willing to have a little mindfulness in your life; a frustrating life isn’t a license for rudeness and for acting like a jerk. Have a little sense of common courtesy and manners. The same kind you'd like to have given to you. The more mindful we become of our actions and reactions to what’s happening around and to us, the easier even the most trying times can be.

Even being on a "fabulous support inquisition program."