--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote:
>
> NOTE: This is a general, multi-purpose rap. It is about
> a phenomenon that I think affects the entire Internet,
> not just the forum you are reading it on. If you think
> that it's about "your forum," or you in particular, you
> might just be suffering from ISIS yourself.
>
Barry: How do you like my version 101 soapbox?
Raunchydog: It's looks exactly like the others.
Barry: But this one has THREE stages of Self-Importance.
Raunchydog: Figures.
Yep. It's not about YOU it's about Barry rising above us all on his
self-important soapbox telling everyone to ignore self-important people. I
wonder if he's including himself as a person to be ignored?
> Overcoming ISIS (Internet Self Importance Syndrome)
>
> Those of us have practiced meditation for many years
> often forget what it was like before we started. Before
> we learned how easy it was to ignore thoughts, most of
> us would have said, "Stop thought? Don't be stupid. No
> one can stop thought. My head has been filled with
> thoughts pretty much every second since I was born.
> My mind is a 'captive audience' to my thoughts."
>
> But it isn't. The only thing that made us believe that
> our minds were a "captive audience" to the endless stream
> of thoughts was not knowing how to Just Say No to them.
> Now we know, and we can tune them out any time we want.
>
> I think that -- because of its intense McLuhanist nature
> as a hot medium ("hot" meaning "absorbing," in the sense
> that you "just can't look away") -- a lot of people have
> come to believe that they are a "captive audience" to the
> seemingly never-ending stream of words and images being
> beamed at them from the Internet.
>
> I'm sure you know a few people whom you would characterize
> as "Internet addicts." I certainly do. At various times
> I've probably been one myself, as have you if you've paid
> your dues on this medium for any length of time.
>
> So you know the syndrome. You get hooked on a chat forum
> or a Facebook discussion list or a Twitter feed and part
> of you feels as if you just "must" keep up with it. You
> start to feel uneasy if you *don't* keep up with it, as if
> you were "missing something." This is ISIS, Stage One. In
> this first stage of the dis-ease, people start to feel more
> owned by the forums they haunt than owners of or users
> of them. They develop paranoias: if they don't "keep up,"
> for all they know Bad Things might be said about them or
> about the people or groups they identify with. Can't have
> that. So they compulsively read every line of every post
> or tweet, and equally compulsively respond "as needed"
> to any that "demand" a response.
>
> And that's when ISIS Stage Two kicks in. Stage Two is where
> these now-compulsive readers start to believe that everyone
> else is equally compulsive about reading *them*. They start
> to believe that these other users are their own private
> "captive audience."
>
> Again, you know the type. People who just *assume* that
> everyone on the forum reads every word they write, the same
> way that they read everything everyone else writes. ISIS Stage
> Two sufferers often *berate* others for not reading everything
> they write, as if in not doing so they have committed some
> kind of sin, and require penance and absolution. "Bless me,
> Father, for I have sinned...I failed to read all of the posts
> by Whatshisface this week," to which the Cyberpriest replies,
> "Say 20 'Hail Bill Gates'...go and sin no more."
>
> ISIS Stage Three is where those who have begun to imagine
> that they *have* a "captive audience" start to imagine that
> the *influence* they have over the people in that "captive
> audience" is greater than it really is. Stage Three sufferers
> start to post fantasies about how they've *affected* some-
> one, how they've "ruined their day" or "gotten them" by
> posting the utterly brilliant and devastating response that
> they just posted. If you've been around the Net for a few
> years, I don't have to tell you how nasty some of these "I
> control your life because you're a part of my captive
> audience" fantasies can become. Sometimes you wish
> you could just turn these self-important Internet Self
> Importance Syndrome sufferers OFF.
>
> That's where the reminder of meditation comes in. You
> *can* turn them OFF.
>
> Just do what they cannot. Don't read what they write.
>
> They *have* to read what you write. Every word of it.
> *Especially* if you start not bothering to read theirs.
> ISIS Stage Three sufferers tend to interpret someone
> writing them off as a kind of personal attack, in the same
> league as being dumped by a long-term girlfriend or
> boyfriend. And, like some of those dumpees, if they're
> already far enough gone into ISIS Stage Three to feel
> as if you're their own private "captive audience" and
> that they control you, they're not going to *like* the
> notion of "losing control" over you, even though they
> never really had any.
>
> So they'll kick and scream and put up a fight, just the way
> that certain thoughts or trains of thoughts do when you're
> meditating. They'll *fight* for the imagined control they
> believe that they have over your "captive audience" mind.
>
> Just Say No.
>
> Just Say No to all the kicking and screaming. Just Say No to
> these voices on your screen, the same way you Just Say No
> to the thoughts in meditation. The silence that rewards you
> when these voices fade away is more than worth the effort,
> and yes, can be compared to the bliss of meditation when
> the thoughts fade away.
>
