No candidate diaries for moi. Honestly, I'm just not really feeling it for either candidate. Well, I heard something today that made me like Obama more than I did. But that's about it.

stay afloat until it's over.

Now would be the time to start a chorus of Kumbaya.

if none of us are recommending the candidate diaries, who is?  I hate it when the Rec List is clogged with hit diaries, and this seems to happen more days than it doesn't.  It's depressing.

We do it every NIGHT here in Top Comments. Every night.

(Spoiler alert: this is a LONG comment. ;x )

The idea that we are too 'small' or too 'few' to make a change is the greatest challenge to democracy that we face in this country (I am certain it is not a feeling exclusive to here). It is a thought which builds depression consequences. Democrats, particularly in red states, ask themselves the same question, come voting time, and all too often the answer is, my vote isn't going to matter, my vote is too small, too insignificant, too inconsequential ... those voting like me are too few ...

If you regard conservatives as a terrible political adversary, that is nothing compared to the inner adversary of the idea that there isn't much we can do.

I have been involved in a really nice thread, below, with Patriot Daily news Clearinghouse about mining for Top Comments, as TC diarists do it. That is only a portion of the picture of what goes into Top Comments each night. All of the diarists for Top Comments are also HOSTS. We try very hard to make TC a welcoming place for each night's guests, a fun an interesting place to be, an online version of Cheers, where, if everyone doesn't know your name, exactly, they at least know and regard your dKos nick, and try hard to recognize and validate your arrival when you come.

I know my time is limited each night since I get up around 5 am Eastern every morning, so I cannot rec and comment late into the night as I once did. Others do that, however. We take being fun and playful very seriously. ;)

Obviously, recs are a part of the dKos commenting system. They don’t mean much, neither does ‘TU status.’ But at least they are a tangible way of letting the commenter know ‘Kilroy was here.’ It is, for me, like a smile or a handshake of acknowledgement and approval. You cannot build a diary series on recs alone, however, it is built on comment threads.

When one works as a TC host, one has the opportunity to see very clearly how ‘energy’ works in the dKos community. Someone makes a comment within the diary, someone replies with a comment that adds energy to the thread. Not all comments add energy. Some comments - this kind is ultra rare in TC - drain energy, sap energy, work to kill the thread. Others bring energy, provoke thought, provoke further conversation and engagement. It can be a bit tricky following multiple threads in a given night’s TC diary, but TC hosts are very adept in that kind of virtual gymnastics. So we see many ways in which positive and dynamic comment energy works under the dKos comment structure.

People who comment more rarely have a harder time acquiring that insight into how energy moves comment threads. There are some other dynamics at play in a virtual comment field which don’t work well for building positive energy momentum. When there are conflicts, it can acquire a coliseum-like atmosphere, in which some come to cheer for the Christians (and add conflict-bolstering energy to one side), others come to cheer for the lions, and add conflict-bolstering energy to the other side. Egos become involved, no one wants to lose face, and before you know it, all the highly toxic energy all those individuals have ever stored up for ANY slight or injustice is brought full force into the fray. No, such threads are runaway energy, and it is all but impossible to jump in and arrest their momentum. The attempt to do so there is not very wise, really. It’s more likely that both sides will dump on the one who attempts it.

Most people know there are better times than others to discuss ‘difficult’ topics with loved ones, so they try to pick those times. The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, discusses this very topic with a high percentage of his clients. They cannot get their dogs to do what they want when the dog gets excited. Cesar has an incredibly fine sense of recognizing the escalating stages of canine excitement. Many dogs can go from level one (calm) to level ten in a second or so. But they give off ‘signals’ that the escalation is about to happen, so he bumps or touches the dog in an alerting way before that escalation occurs, REQUIRING the dog’s attention, no discussion. The dog is like, what?! But they can’t sustain that escalation at the same time they are trying to decipher what he wants.

Obviously, human beings are a great deal more complex than dogs, but many do go through similar escalations when it comes to excitement. When their ‘blood is up,’ reasoning with them is all but impossible. My candidate diary last week (which in my defense wasn’t a candidate diary at ALL) talked a bit about Mahatma Gandhi (HE was the candidate I offered for consideration) and his brilliant peace movement. All of the most effective work Gandhi did was in the calm times, when his audience wasn’t escalated out of control. He taught when they could think, he prepared them for controlling their energy and their power when the challenges and provocations would inevitably come. He was probably the most effective teacher our species has yet had at reading human energy and in helping humans control their own energy from within, which is how it works best.

So, if you cannot help interrupt toxic threads, what can you do? First, remove your energy from those threads. Decline to read them, decline to rec them, not even individual comments within them, and certainly, refuse to add your energy to that toxic swirl. Energy has the unique property in our species of being magnetic, of being contagious. It can be very difficult to not be ‘infected’ in that atmosphere.

But the thing about life is, it’s short. And, moreover, there are infinite possibilities, infinite possible things we can do with out energy. What I like to see is Democrats using their energy in positive ways to elect Democrats, to promote a powerful progressive agenda. There are infinite ways to do even that!

So while it may seem at the time that we HAVE to say something in response to this or that, we really don’t, because a much better time will come for the communication, and better ways for it, too.

Put your energy and your attention in threads you want to encourage and reinforce. Watch how the infusion of your positive energy impacts the thread. Of course, it won’t always. This comment, for example, comes when very few will venture again into va dare’s fine diary. So it won’t get read by many, it won’t have much opportunity to animate. Many comments, however, DO get that chance, particularly in a fresh diary, with dynamic commenting happening. Or look at comment threads in last night’s diary which ‘took’ off. Look at the little bits of energy commenters fed into them to help them reach that ‘excape velocity.

The other thing Gandhi might highlight is, there is great power in being the change we wish to see. It ‘touches’ all those around us. It may not touch them with enormous influence all at once - what was the line in the old Moody Blues song Higher and Higher ...

Blasting, billowing, bursting forth
With the power of ten billion butterfly sneezes

- perhaps our energy will only have the power of a butterfly sneeze. But add a dozen, add a thousand, add a million, and before long its impact will be felt.

It does not seem like much when it is happening. But mistake it not, it will move mountains, and it does. Every candidate who ever won elective office won on individual votes which counted, every societal initiative which ever won the day did the same.

The power is greater if you believe in it. ;)

And, Gandhi might say that the deteriorating standards of behavior others adopt when they let their energy be carried away has nothing to do with you, if you don’t let it. Try to never sacrifice your standards in moments of passion. Think about what you are trying to accomplish. Which is to make this world a better place, unless I am very much mistaken. And ask yourself about the best ways to do that. Ways. Because there are infinitely many. There are ways with every person you ever meet. Use your passion and your power there.