"Among other things, anonymity in the Fellowship means that we forgo personal prestige for any A.A. work we do to help alcoholics. But it can be a real step forward in growth - a step into the humility that is, for some people, the spiritual essence of humility." From the pamphlet on the A.A. group.
The Primary Purpose of a meeting is to help alcoholics recover through A.A.'s suggested Twelve Steps of recovery. We don't insist that they use our Program but we do suggest that it's the only thing we can talk about with any confidence and competence. If some other method works for you then go get it. Good for you.
Why are some people so eager to tell me something that lets me know what their political leanings are? Don't tell me. I don't want to know. People that are living out on the ends of the political spectrum really seem to be driven to make some comment that lets me know why they're right and I'm wrong. Leave me alone. I don't walk around jamming my opinions down your throat. I think it's particularly self-destructive to get all of your information from social media or from a couple of partisan websites that have a narrative that they want to push. People are motivated by anger and fear - advertisers know this - so these sites are interested in making you angry or afraid because you'll come back to look at their advertising again and they're making money selling advertising, not by telling the truth. Many of them aren't even slightly interested in providing a balance, nuanced view of what's going on in society. The news divisions used to lose money for the networks because they were put into place to serve the public good. It used to be the law that media companies had to spend some resources on educating the public as a cost of access to the public airways.
My New Year's Resolution is to think more about myself. I might try to get more people to think about me because I'm just one guy and I can't think about myself enough.
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