Threads–Good, Bad, Neither? (114)

To my sewing friends, I apologize.  This is not about your thread. No, this is about the ‘threads’ of conversations via the internet; those sometimes long streams of back and forth natter that can be funny, nonsensical, pleasant, encouraging, cruel, hateful, or irrelevant.

I confess I don’t usually take the time to read threads unless it involves a post from a family member or very close friend.  I learned my lesson during the past presidential election period.  Or, I should say, during the two years of the past presidential campaign.  I have friends on the right, the left, in the middle and nowhere to be seen, and I was totally disgusted with the rants, accusations, innuendos, and pure bile that was spilled out over the internet.  It wasn’t usually the main ‘status’ that was bad.  It was the unsolicited comments. It was the thread.

At first I thought it would be good for me to see various points of view and try to understand where other people were coming from with their comments.  Then I realized it was bothering me deeply to see the underbelly of society on their soapboxes spouting vulgarity and sounding way too much like the old news reels of dictators from another generation.

The past few days since the Boston Marathon bombing, and since the voting on weapon background checks, and since ricin laced envelopes showed up in Washington, the door has been flung wide open again on overly long threads. I only peeked a little, but I am guilty of giving in to curiosity.

Oops.

Learned the lesson again.

I have some friends that post ‘like’ to various fb pages that seem to present interesting ideas about politics, religion, food choices, mother nature, etc. If they took time to read the threads attached to them, I am sure they wouldn’t ‘like’ them and in doing so, share them with their other fb friends. Some of the thread comments are pretty filthy. I understand many sites have ‘trolls’ but some of the thread comments are by people who support the original status. They just want to make sure to denigrate anyone who doesn’t agree with the status. Very odd that people would take the time to do that. Very odd that I would waste time writing about it, let alone thinking about it.

I spent some time last night prioritizing what I want to see on fb and cleaning up some of the junk without ‘unfriending’ anyone. I’ve also made a pledge to myself not to read threads unless I absolutely think it will be worth my time and intellect. And I’ve also decided that the very best threads may be the ones from my sewing friends. The kind you can hold between your fingers and use to create something worthwhile and beautiful.

My hat’s off and my thimble is on to my hardworking sewing friends and their amazing threads.