positive and negative day

So, I’m feeling really ashamed of myself. Today I yelled at someone. In public. well, I think I did. it was all very loud and confusing. I definitely had a very heated argument. With a climate change denier.

 

And it has thrown me off, after what was a very good day otherwise, with a fansastic turnout at the Brisbane Walk Against Warming.

 

There were a number of ways that the yelling could have been avoided. And it was a useless thing to do. And if I’d just stopped for a second and thought about it, I would have come to the conclusion that common sense and all my experience have told me- arguing with delusional people is useless and stupid.

 

oh, how embarrassing. and counter-productive! And it doesn’t matter how rude someone else is- that is no excuse for me being rude.

 

So, instead of being calm and a) walking away, or b) talking in a rational manner, I did c) get all riled up and just yell about reading the science – resulting in a ‘read the science’- ‘I have! you read the science’ ‘well, I don’t think you’ve read enough’ red faced yelling match with me shaking and not coming up with anything intelligent, even to complete clunkers of lies like ‘the sea level isn’t rising, the islands are sinking into the sea!’ (I didn’t even come up with ‘why?’ or ‘what, all at once?’)

 

I wish I’d been my normal self- I never (really really rarely) yell. I try to listen and respect everyone’s opinion! Though I do tend to avoid rather than confront difficult issues. Because usually I realise that it’s not worth it, and have better things to do with my  

 

So I wish I’d just asked sat the woman who was yelling at me to sit down and have a talk - and not reinforced her stereotype of ‘alarmist’ activists.  As I’m sure she is a reasonably sane person (which is a good description of me also) in normal life, and we could have agreed to disagree on some issues, and maybe found some other common ground. What does she think about renewable energy? Better public transport? Air pollution and health problems? What about overconsumption and the huge levels of personal and organisational debt we have? There are things to talk about still.  Yelling about the things we disagree on is worse than useless. 

 

I guess I’ll just have to learn my lesson, remember to breathe, and not do it again. And read some of those great articles about things you can say to those kinds of arguments.  

 

argh. 

Comments

[mitchell porter]

I almost sent my number out on the CCNQ list as the person to contact if a skeptic showed up. I guess I should have done so!

[pendant lighting]

I love reading your blog

[Anna]

thank you so much!

[Paperjoz]

ok I swear I simply forget that you have a blog. But I wish more of my friends had them, I love reading non-conversational writing by my friends hey (and maybe if I wish my other friends had them, does that mean I MYSELF should have one? hmmm).

anyway! I liked this post Anna, I haven't yelled at anyone before but I know that we all have it in us especially with the right button being pushed when we slightly lose a bit of composure, like turning into the Hulk out of nowhere and then we quickly revolve back into the simple human bruce banner and realise how we've behaved. dang.

well you've yelled at someone in public, that's a tick that I think it 'kinda' cool to have in your life checklist book. (that contains other less-noble things like having a car accident, getting legless, being jealous etc. Cause it means you're human I guess. So hooray for partaking human stuff at least once, I guess we learn from it.

and crap! Australia is an island right? does that mean it's sinking and I should move inland?!

J