Do I Dare?

[Codey]

Do I Dare?

a poem by Codey

Sitting stareing at the screen

should I push the button?

What will I be today?

What will be the name

given by those who don't know me?

Who will pass judgement on my life

without living it?

Who will disparage my deeds

without knowing them?

Who will condemn me

for a label they have given?

Who will hate me

with the hatred they preach against?

Blind hatred

Practised hatred

Perfected hatred

Who will demean me for differences

while defending their own?

Who will dismiss my ideas as evil

because they disagree?

Who will judge and ridicule me

while demanding they not be judged?

Questions can have many answers

and problems many solutions.

Who will not help solve those problems

unless the solution is one that they choose?

Who will use words to injure and hurt

thinking they're proving a point,

forgetting that after the anger is gone

the words will still remain?

Who will berate those taking different paths

and call them hurtfull names,

while ignoring shared goals and dreams?

And so here I sit, before this screen,

looking at the button.

Will it be more of the same today

or will today be different?

Will I be seen for who I am

or as what they wrongfully percieve?

Will I be judged based on what I do

or for not going along with with their beliefs?

Will my presence and ideas be welcome

or merely tolerated?

Should I push the button? I wonder if I dare.

[JamesSavik]

Will my presence and ideas be welcome

or merely tolerated?

Welcome- each and every time Codey!

[blue]

I've had that feeling too, sometimes.

You're always welcome as far as I'm concerned.

Whether it's people who don't accept you for being you, outside the groups you belong to, or even within those groups, you are still you, a unique part of this world.

[dude]

Codey has just put his finger on the pulse of the 'net.

He has been mostly quiet since coming back from the hospital this time, but he has been watching and reading...

In the meantime, those of us embroiled in the heat and emotions of what has played out here recently feel tired and spent but are probably no wiser.

Sometimes, I think I'd like to go back to just watching and reading...

Thanks again, Codey, for your thought provoking words.

Maybe we will get it sometime soon.

[rick]

I'd say that Codey has his finger on the pulse of more than what is happening here on the net. American society is becoming a less tolerant, less civilized place these days: a place where everything must be a confrontation between polar opposites. This isn't the society I believe in, nor the country I spent the vast majority of my youth defending.

-Rick