Ignore

There is nothing more infuriating or more debilitating than to be ignored.

One can respond to mockery with mockery.  One can respond to challenges with facts.  One can even respond to direct attacks with defenses.

But to be ignored - to have one's opinion simply set aside - or even worse, to have it set aside for the purposes of justifying someone else - is something I have come to find as destructive as some of more abusive yelling I've heard.

To ignore is to devalue.  It's to treat something or someone as less than value, as less than worth noticing.  At best it is simply to pretend that something is there but not important, at worst it is to pretend that there is simply not something there at all.

To ignore is to destroy.  More often than not, it is acknowledgement that a situation exists but simply moving on from it for reasons other than solving the problem at hand.  The reasons for move on can vary:  person pride, lack of resources, lack of knowledge.  But the end result is that problems ignored do not go away.  Given enough time, they will destroy all that is before them.

To ignore is to debilitate.  It is to take the actions and enthusiasms of another and to grind them into powder, leaving that individual with nothing but the dregs of their opinions and actions in their hands as the one who ignores fills their hands with the bulky objects of their own agendas and thoughts.    It is to seize and destroy the primal urge of individuals to act leaving only its wake the muddled sense that one must wait - in patience and solitude - until told what one can do.  It cheats all of the nobility of acting, replacing it with the sense of being an object to be used.

To ignore is to infuriate.  This is the hidden fruit of ignoring by those that practice it.  The sense that authority can convey - and often it's false - is that acceptance equals agreements.  But to ignore, especially repeatedly, scarcely accomplishes that.  Practiced often enough, it creates a core of fire deep within individuals.  A core that energizes - but not in the way that many anticipate.

Because ultimately, to ignore repeatedly is to invite disaster.  It ensure that problems are not brought to light, that loyalty is not fostered and in the end the thing that the ignorers hope to accomplish will not come to pass.  It's simply moving the issues of the day further down the road to a more inconvenient and critical time.  It's using power and authority to override the opinions and concerns of others not from any sense of knowledge or supporting evidence but because it's inconvenient or challenging or simply not to be dealt with at this point.  More often that not, those that ignore reveal more about themselves and their weaknesses than they do about about the strength of that which they propose instead.

Ignorance may be bliss.  Ignoring is foolish.