I recently wrote a piece about my downstairs neighbors and the mutual exchange of noise our two households have been enjoying. Perhaps I over dramatized and it isn’t really that bad. Perhaps I didn’t over dramatize a bit, and their late night Red Bull fueled war game playing is really deplorable.
Either way, my main point was the dilemma of conscience I faced, knowing that my kids make just as much noise as their video games. I can’t bring myself to demand quiet from them while also asking them to live with the constant noise from above. And so I am prepared to endure a good bit of noise coming up though the floor if it means I don’t have to feel quite as much anxiety about the noise we’re sending down.
Now then, a weird thing has happened. I posted said piece in the mid afternoon. After work, our family went to a birthday party and arrived home about seven in the evening. And though our neighbors were home, there was not a peep to be heard from them. Neither did they have a guest, which has been an almost daily occurrence.
This made me wonder, is there any chance they read what I wrote, feel sufficiently bad about it, and are now tiptoeing around their apartment? I debated seriously about whether or not to publish that writing in a public space, but I figured the odds of them knowing about it and reading about it were sufficiently slim. But that evening I wondered if the sudden quiet and stillness was coincidental or a clear response to what I had written.
Mine is a small community, and though I may not know what the connections are, there are without a doubt numerous connections between us andour neighbors of which I am unaware. As I quickly scanned the list of contacts on my social network of choice, I saw several potential connections.
So I’ve removed that post. And now, in addition to agonizing over our noise generation, I am also feeling bad about having them read about themselves on the internet. Perhaps I shouldn’t worry about it. Maybe it’s all for the best. Either way, I’ll probably never know for sure, and what’s done is done.
This also has me thinking about blogging in general. What can I write frankly without the risk of insulting and alienating others? Should I take that into consideration at all? As we continue to make contacts in our community, it is inevitable that people will stumble across this space without my knowledge.
It isn’t my goal to piss people off. But maybe I shouldn’t worry so much if that is the result. How do I reconcile the value and utility of honestly processing my experiences in this medium (with a rant, as the occasion calls?) with my sometimes crippling sense of propriety. It’s got me thinking.
