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1. At first, I was tak­en aback by the post, but I sat and reflect­ed on it a bit and real­ized that those feel­ings were because my default assump­tion is that hon­esty nec­es­sar­i­ly entails being cal­lous.

   With a post that has the poten­tial to hurt the feel­ings of a read­er, (if it is specif­i­cal­ly about them) are they jus­ti­fied in feel­ing hurt? The bias I bring to the issue comes from an expe­ri­ence with an ex who post­ed things that were both fac­tu­al­ly incor­rect about my fam­i­ly and sim­ply hurt­ful, sto­ries that I felt weren’t hers to tell. I strug­gle with this ques­tion as I know it is dif­fer­ent for every­one, but I’m inter­est­ed in your per­spec­tive on no cen­sor­ship but also where com­pas­sion may also fit into that.

2. To me, hon­esty is hon­esty. Sure, you can be curt, you can lack tact, but it’s still the truth. When I write, I try to be as objec­tive as pos­si­ble. There’s no room for cal­lous­ness (as you so impres­sive­ly came to real­ize). There’s still bias that I can’t remove from myself, but one can only do so much.

   In many cas­es though, the truth hurts. People don’t like to admit it to them­selves, so they lash out at you when you bring it to their atten­tion.

   Being “jus­ti­fied” about feel­ing hurt is a com­pli­cat­ed issue, because you have to take intent into account. But often, peo­ple will be hurt whether you intend­ed such results or not. In my opin­ion, it does­n’t mat­ter. I don’t write to make friends or ene­mies, I don’t write to hurt or flat­ter peo­ple, I write to express myself. The feel­ings of the read­er are some­what unre­lat­ed.

   I’ve been in a sit­u­a­tion sim­i­lar to yours where an ex would see things that were fac­tu­al­ly incor­rect. As dif­fi­cult as it can be, I’ve learned to let that go. Even if yours was­n’t writ­ing about you mali­cious­ly, it’s her prob­lem, not yours. I believe that we all have a right to tell our sides of a sto­ry; she does as much as you do. Who is actu­al­ly right becomes irrel­e­vant because you’ll nev­er agree, and there are no absolute truths (my Taoist side com­ing out on that last point). But if you know your truth in your heart, what can she say to hurt you?

   Compassion fits in when there are friends involved. I would­n’t do any­thing to hurt mine. If this means that I have to cen­sor myself for the sake of their feel­ings, or 3rd par­ties involved in our friend­ship, then I will. I’m will­ing to give up that part of me.

   Awesome com­ment.

3. As I read your response, I just found myself nod­ding, but also with a small knot in the pit of my stom­ach that I’ll try my best to artic­u­late.

   I think the part that I will take with me and prob­a­bly revis­it should I encounter a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion is:

   Who is actu­al­ly right becomes irrel­e­vant because you’ll nev­er agree, and there are no absolute truths (my Taoist side com­ing out on that last point). But if you know your truth in your heart, what can she say to hurt you?

   Something I’m turn­ing over in my mind is that if I know the truth in my heart, I may be free from that con­cern, but what about oth­er peo­ple who are hurt by that same sit­u­a­tion? An ide­al sit­u­a­tion is that two par­ties walk away with their own ver­sion of truth, even if one per­son car­ries things that are just fac­tu­al­ly incor­rect. But in the instance of a pub­lic forum, the fac­tu­al­ly incor­rect things can take on a dif­fer­ent life, becom­ing inte­grat­ed into the truths of oth­ers. My hope is that they would seek a broad­er under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion, but I imag­ine my inter­ac­tions with some peo­ple would be changed as a result.

4. And yeah, I messed up on the cit­ing thing again. Sigh. This is what I’ll be tak­ing away:

   Who is actu­al­ly right becomes irrel­e­vant because you’ll nev­er agree, and there are no absolute truths (my Taoist side com­ing out on that last point). But if you know your truth in your heart, what can she say to hurt you?

5. Fixed your tag again. :)

   And you’re absolute­ly right in believ­ing that express­ing our ver­sions of events in pub­lic has a chance to alter oth­er peo­ple’s per­cep­tions. But I’ve always believed that the onus is on each (3rd par­ty) indi­vid­ual to do their own research to fig­ure out which ver­sion of the truth to believe, by get­ting both sides of the sto­ry. Sometimes the truth is a mix­ture of both. I don’t like it when peo­ple assume I’m at fault just because some­one else tells them I am, so I try to treat oth­er peo­ple with more respect, because often it’s some mis­un­der­stand­ing or just some­one who does­n’t like me to begin with. I rarely trust sec­ond-hand infor­ma­tion; I wait to see things with my own eyes before believ­ing them.

   The sad part is that as much as this works in the­o­ry, most peo­ple don’t do such things. They lis­ten to gos­sip, or pop­u­lar opin­ion. They believe any­thing that peo­ple tell them, so often the first per­son who says some­thing will alter their views. I’ve writ­ten many peo­ple off, as a result of their inabil­i­ty to see things objec­tive­ly.

   It’s very dif­fi­cult to let a sit­u­a­tion like this go, espe­cial­ly when we feel like an injus­tice is being done from harm­ful words, but I find it’s bet­ter in the end if you’re able to do so. I’ve been in a sit­u­a­tion where many peo­ple believe me to be at fault, because they did­n’t both­er to get my side of the sto­ry, when I know that I’m not. However, to speak out against them, or even to sim­ply explain myself, would only make mat­ters worse. I’ve learned to bite my tongue, and under­stand that it’s not my prob­lem (and to nev­er social­ize with these peo­ple). A rather enlight­en­ing way to live, if it can be done.

   Your sit­u­a­tion reminds me of this sto­ry I read recent­ly, and this has guid­ed me through many dis­agree­ments. It’s a Zen Koan, but I found it was sim­i­lar to a Taoist line: “A strong argu­ment needs no words”. Perhaps you may find the same guid­ance in it. I found the most sig­nif­i­cant part to be the line “he lost his rep­u­ta­tion, but this did not trou­ble him”. When we can let go of rep­u­ta­tion, we let go of what peo­ple think of us, and become free from these con­flicts of “truth”. The goal is to be like the Zen mas­ter Hakuin.