On Being Hurtful

Even though I am a proponent and practitioner of being as honest as possible, I am going to *try* not to say things that are intentionally "hurtful" to others going forward because of the words I recently read of the most brilliant blogger I've ever come across. Unfortunately, sometimes hurtful words seem most appropriate, and certainly serve to convey the sentiments I am intending to express. They also tend to catapult propaganda more effectively. It will be up to me to decide if the sentiments themselves are legitimate, defensible, and/or "desirable", or if they are negativities I should work to eliminate from my life. I suspect I will go back and forth on that forever, basically depending on the kind of day I am having. I'm not a very strong person in that regard.

But I admit that my motivations for "intentionally hurting another" through words come most often from fairly negative places that serve fairly destructive roles in my own life. I can certainly justify the practice in certain contexts (aside: why does it seem like the same word (certainly in this case) often finds its way multiple times into a single sentence and then proves too difficult to remove and replace without altering the meaning of the sentence beyond repair? frustrating result of a limited vocabulary and decision to never read any of my summer reading books, I guess), as can anyone who believes in one's right to self-defense. When others are engaging in pursuits designed to encroach upon my life and my freedom and doing so based on what I believe to be fundamentally ridiculous premises, ESPECIALLY while doing so in an aggressive, "intentionally hurtful" manner themselves, a response-in-kind feels justified.

Perhaps that is a limitation of my maturation process, or perhaps that's just one of those realities of life. I don't know, but either way I will be more aware of my response going forward and will attempt to reduce the instances of "intentionally hurtful" behavior, if only as a tribute to the unnamed blogger referenced above.