on the Internet and betrayal

[rm]

I want to be writing about how awesome WriterCon was.
I want to be writing one of a billion Torchwood fics I should be working on, or any of a couple of essays I've been asked to do for anthologies.
I want to be writing responses to the slash panel talking points I found so problematic from that one session at WriterCon.

But I don't get to talk about that today.

Instead, I have to talk about trust and about what it means to err on the side of kindness.

Despite the fact that I am often harsh, that I call it like I see it, if I can help you, I often will. If that means money, professional advice, listening to the grief of stories, I give it if I've got it -- because people being generous with me, often more generous that I deserved at the time, is how I'm able to have the life I have. It's how I'm able to have any life at all.

But my trust and the trust of people I adore has been abused epically of late, in a number of ways, by a number of people. These include people misrepresenting their identity to cause rupture in a community that matters to me, people lying about death and disease in their lives to get money and attention and people exaggerating for the purpose of social manipulation and attention situations in which I would have no problem with them legitimately asking for help and my providing it in return.

And now I'm pissed. Because when you do that, you hurt people who do need help, and lord knows there are plenty of them.

I could do wrath and rage. I want to do wrath and rage. But I know whatever anger and eloquence I can muster will do nothing more than make these petty, craven, bored and broken sorts snigger or perhaps work harder to cover their tracks. So it doesn't matter.

Do good because you can do it. Do good because of what it says about you. Do good because it is there to be done.

The five minutes of my time, the five dollars donated, whatever -- all perfectly worth it so I don't have to feel I did less than I could have, just so I could have the privilege of never being embarrassed on the Internet.

You didn't get away with anything; you merely received compassion.

Comments

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Some years ago, a very generous and kind friend I knew only online died, alone and in debt. A group of fellow fans got together and donated enough money for her to have a gravestone. At the time, I was very ill and poor myself and couldn't donate. So every donation I make now, I make in her memory, with an open heart. If other people want to take advantage of that, well, I'm sorry for them, and it doesn't take away from the giving.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

This was a truly lovely comment and I am glad I read it.