Different styles of expression in difficult times

I think it's wonderful for us to have people to communicate with (and even more so during this recent social isolation due to the Coronavirus), but I think we should also try our best to be aware that different people communicate differently.

With me, for example, I don't tend to instantly write back in-the moment (although sometimes I do depending on my mood, my time frame, what I am or am not in the middle of working on, and various other factors), I don't tend to be a casual chatter (although once in a great while I do), I don't text much, I don't talk on the phone much (except to about two people)...

I do enjoy ongoing, long-ish online communication with a few friends - but even that has its time limits for me, because I have a rather slow process when it comes to just about everything.

Some people are a lot faster and more sudden and more in-the-moment than me - and that is fine. We're all different and should try our best to respect each other's differences, as well as similarities.

We don't all communicate the same way or directly in-the-moment. With me it depends what mood I'm in and what I'm focusing on, because I've never been good at multi-tasking or talking to several different people at the same time or directly focusing on a bunch of different things at the same time - and if I try, I tend to get frazzled and edgy and concerned that I'm not focusing closely enough on ANYTHING.

I don't like to feel rushed or forced. I like to maintain my own pace and space.

Sometimes I'm in the mood to communicate with others. Other times, I'm in the mood to focus on nothing but reading or writing poetry. Other times, I need some quiet time and space to myself to process things my own way, on an individual level, before I focus on communicating with others again.

Partly due to the recent focus on and stress-fest related to the Coronavirus pandemic, I feel like I've recently gotten a little less productive, less focused, and more edgy - so if it takes me a little longer than usual to communicate with friends, it doesn't mean I'm rudely ignoring you. It probably means I'm trying to focus on my own process of handling things and catching up on some things I've fallen behind on and not lowering my immune system by working in too many different directions at the same time.

We all have our own process, we all have our own preferred forms of communication and expression and self-preservation - and reaching out to others and reaching out to ourselves.

Flesh-tearing shark shaped snarks

Maybe I sometimes phrase things wrong by saying I don't give a fuck about scenes (in regards to poetry/art).

Sometimes I have little word issues and question my own words and wonder what certain basic words even mean and maybe "scene" wasn't the right word to express my discomfort, because all a "scene" really means is a place or an acting sequence, I guess, and "place" is so broad scale and the type of "scenes" I was thinking of are small.

My mind seems to associate scenes with small group trends and that sort of thing.

I'm not particularly interested in the latest trends, but I am interested in poetry community.

I don't disrespect or discredit the desire for community; in fact, I think that poetry/art communities can be very necessary and very positive. I guess I just don't think that my interest causes me to fit into any one particular scene; but maybe it does if the scene is POETRY.

I do enjoy being around people with similar interests, or at least communicating with people with similar interests.

What I don't enjoy, don't respect, and don't understand the positive points of are the sort of scenes or groups or communities (or whatever you call them) that seem like popularity contests.

Like they're competing against each other and want to bash others down.

Like they get off by lashing out at others, carelessly picking on others, and creating their own mean non-mainstream cheerleader squad routine.

I've seen/heard poets bitch about other poets, have little snark-fests about other poets, and so forth.

Those are the kinds of scenes I dislike. The scenes that create their own narrow groups who pretend to be diverse when they're stabbing other people behind their backs.

The communities filled with a small infestation of snark-festing, as if they get off by cutting others down and trying to drown them, like flesh-tearing shark shaped snarks patrol these waters and can't get enough of others' blood.

Poetry in and of itself is non-mainstream, yet some of this non-mainstream community seems to want to fit in to the more mainstream approach grouping themselves into smaller groups and then attacking the other groups.

Maybe everything in life is like that and I just notice it more in poetry land, since that's where a lot of my personal attention and energy is directed.

When it comes to poetry and art (and other things too), I don't really care whether or not someone has a college degree (or what their degree is in), whether or not they're social or antisocial or somewhere in between, whether or not they consider themselves academic or independent or something different.

I don't desire to quickly narrow my poetry friend list down into any particular sort of group.

I care about whether or not they're genuinely poetic and whether or not I like their poetry and their personality (although it's also possible for me to like someone's poetry, but find their personality very bothersome - and vice versa).