The Community Through Newly~Opened Eyes

[jonsie]

In more serious and thoughtful reflections lying here in hospital for six months and things hopefully starting to happen in earnest, my own thoughts lingered on a situation I found myself in six months ago and several times much more recently. 

I was drawn to a thread written by @Cleoriff a couple of days ago whereby someone with God given talent apparently committed suicide according to some media reports. 

There followed an interesting discussion about some of the rights and wrongs of suicide. Sometimes, it was said, it's never the answer. My viewpoint differed though I'll try and explain and also explain why a simple discussion got me to realise how wrong I was and changed my viewpoint about the O2 Community. Be warned, a Pulitzer Prize winner it isn't but it's not often I can speak lucidly and with candour. 

Don't forget the many religious arguments and teachings. They say it's a cowardly way out and goes against the teachings of the Church.  Far from it, it takes great courage in many ways unless the balance of your mind is seriously disturbed. 

Yes to some degree it is very much the case but sometimes you can only see that option as the way out and it can be the slightest thing that tips you over a very keen edge. 

I'm not proud to say just how close I have come very recently on a number of occasions and how very much it seemed the only way out, indeed £227.036 told me it was! Some of you may have read about the Bolton born actor Paul Nicholls three or four days ago who had an accident in Thailand 🇹🇭 and has to pay a hospital bill. 

Depending on the paper you read, he suffered from mental health and alcoholism in earlier life and is struggling to pay a hospital bill. Now multiply his problem by 227 times and you could perhaps walk a little in my shoes. Struggle with getting home merely compounded my state of mind. 

BUT I am proud how we now recognise this to be a large scale mental disease AND there is now no stigma attached to discussing with a therapist and getting treatment.

NOW THAT IS COURAGE AND I URGE PEOPLE TO GET THE TREATMENT THEY NEED AND THE SUPPORT OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS. Luckily I was able to and sometimes indeed, the only possible way is undoubtedly UP. 

If not for the support of friends, one very good one in particular, on this very community, I would without doubt, no longer be a part of the life of my family, my wife's or my friends'. 

So I find it would be rather hypocritical to stand by my strong narrow minded views that some of you may remember but I can't just find that thread now which caused a lot of angst.  

In many ways as I have gotten older my outlook on social media has changed enormously.

Iniitially I spoke out about how diverse this community was becoming. It was and I believed at the time, quite strongly, it should remain very much a technical mobile community and indeed not until a short while ago did I waver from that rigid belief. Some still hold onto that mindset as is their every right and I will fight for their right to do so. 

My views changed when I realised just how strong a tool this community can be when sensitive issues are argued sensibly and with feeling. Yes, I still have an aversion to inane what's for breakfast threads But this is a community for everyone not just the individual , drawn together originally not for social issues but for problems with a common theme... the Smart Phone which can be way to smart for many of us average, elder aged people who haven't grown up with technology, but embraced it with a want to learn. 

This community provides that, diversity is good, we are not all the same. I find it easier to put down in words rather than try to hold a conversation with someone I just met unless there is a common bond such as a bar! I'm hoping this is one of my more lucid moments, though theatre ran very late and the anaesthetic is wearing off giving rise to pain so maybe a good time to close.

Let me just thank those people who would have been lost to this community, asking their question and leaving and maybe coming back to ask for more help. I'm talking the ladies here, and in no way do I want to appear to be sexist. There are ladies on here who know a damn sight more than I do about phones but I find they have so much more to teach me about life, about common sense and not just ladies from this small island floating sometimes aimlessly in the Ocean of Life. Thank the lord you have stuck around enriching the community and I do mean every single one of you. 

God Bless the many good friends I've made over the years here (10 years now), some gone, many still around. I just ask for their tolerance. Life isn't too good for me at the moment, I struggle with my own tolerance but I do promise to try harder to EVERYONE in a tight knit circle of older friends and newer friends and not forgetting our relatively new admin team.

So not a TTT review, not an account issue, not an issue with roaming, a system error but a call for acceptance for people with opinions that differ from our own, for tolerance for our newer members who all have much to offer by way of life or work experience or who are just setting out on life's adult journey. Much easier to smile for me these days and yes, I have learned that friendship has got me through some real hard times DESPITE an inability to respond to an outstretched willingly offered hand in a timely enough  fashion. For that my apologies 

[viridis]

Amen to that, and what a PERFECT demonstration of what "Community" means.
We're not inhuman numbers on a screen and some true friendships have grown from our personalities being projected through the screens.
We've all had moments where differing opinions can annoy us, but as demonstrated time and time again, each differing opinion makes a more diversive and stronger forum in the wider picture.
But android is still better than IOS.

P.s Get well soon matey, wishing you all the best as ever.

[blissgirl]

Ditto that what Lord @viridis says

[Anonymous]

Dear @jonsie 

I hope you see the funny side (as intended) in the pic above ... if you don't like it please do say so & I'll delete it ... & ... grovel 

I have just come up to date with your thread about The Community Part Two ... we're here for you, thinking about you a lot

@Cleoriff mentioned pasting a smile on a face = I say putting my happy face on (it's kept in the sideboard drawer when I'm at home & not so good) ... yes, I told someone who was bugging me to her face that = she shuttup 

All Good Wishes & Hugs To You Steve ... you're not alone xx

[Anonymous]

@jonsie & Friends of The Community ... I think this is the right place for me to post this pic, rather than the virtual lounge, as it follows on from what Steve & others have said in this thread xx 

[Glory1]

Very apt @Anonymous 😊