#excellent comments

[good-comments]

[good-comments]

[good-comments]

[good-comments]

[choosinganameisdifficult]

I've mentioned this before, but one of the things that has helped me not bitch people out here on MetaFilter--and this is me, coming from my personal perspective that not bitching people out is a value that I aspire to--is to keep in mind that everyone's hardest struggle is their hardest struggle, for a multitude of reasons. Some people battle anxiety, some people battle racism, some people battle the government, some people battle soldiers; we're all configured to endure different levels of stress and setbacks, and to attempt different degrees of difficulty in the process. I'm happy the world isn't entirely filled with people like me, but it also means that I have to accept that people make different choices from me, from perspectives that are decidedly not mine. As soon as you get into the competitive suffering arena, there is literally no way to come out of it without feeling disrespected, insulted or diminished, or that you've done this to someone else. If what you really want to do is fight, have at it. If what you're looking to do is find some common ground, ways to communicate and ways to try to dignify everyone who is trying to do the things that want to do, start with not presuming there's a single line where 'hard' is at one end and 'easy' is at the other.

Jessamyn West