Remember this: It is better to spew fire than have smoke blown up a person's rear-end.
At the Genesis of this blog, the administrators had a clear goal. One of the conditions of producing this work was to balance the Death/Life checkbook and answer the question of whether we could produce a blog without proof you're a hunter content or bending to other people's false idea we have to prove anything to them. After each review and discussion, things got more interesting in the huddle.
What is a Death/Life checkbook? It is a tally of how much you kill versus how much you nurture, save or propagate. This balance concerns tallies.
Here is a good example of keeping a tally.
I worked for a boss that wanted his staff to put out rat traps in the attic where dog food was stored. I did not like mice and always heard Bubonic Plague going off in my head like a siren. How can you argue when the plague almost took out Europe?
This was a series of events:
When the first mouse was caught in a mouse trap, the veterinarian marched me up the stairs to the attic. We went inside and he picked up the squirming mouse, released it from the metal snap and as it plopped on the wooden stair landing; took his Rockport shoe and stomped while smearing the mouse's body all over the wood. There was glaring. I was sick in my mind for a week. After that trauma was over, the staff would make a mark on the refrigerator for the Rat Kill tab. Offsetting this violent dispatch of dog food poachers upstairs; we saved animal lives downstairs .
What I learned from this scenario was no one likes to have events or actions forced off onto them for the benefit of someone else, even if it's necessary. The way in which you approach something is the long term ruler of how resistant or accepting a person or group is to a task/information. It's assault of the mind.
There is something about keeping tallies. Men and women keep tallies of who they sleep with. People keep tallies of what animals they kill. Some people can not even keep up with their checkbook because they are poor accountants.. There are perfectly balanced tallies and overly imbalanced tallies.
In keeping with the written work a need for cosmic balance was there. Questions arose.
Asking the questions:
Is it necessary to kill something everytime we want to post a piece?
Is it necessary to kill something just for entertainment or writing?
What would we actually post in the way of photography or art?
As huntresses who write, we didn't feel it was ethical for us or prudent to kill everytime we felt there was something we needed to say or spoon it up to the mass consumption for others. After all, the writers on staff would have to live with excessive behavior and wanted to maintain our commonsense when approaching our topics.
One of our mottos (Thank you Marianne) was:
The world is your oyster but if you don't take care of your oyster bed it will die or go dry. No one likes a dry oyster.
Every time we write and post a piece of work somewhere in the world there is an endeavor going on in a habitat that we encourage be it plants, trees, bees, birds, large animals habitats, or anything under the radar that will help along wildlife, women and kids who would venture out in the field.
The question about killing for other peoples entertainment was a definite no. If consumers wanted that kind of material there are hunting personalities or average lay people that would readily fill this void.
Kill photos we decided against because after discussing with non-hunters didn't want them to feel like we were forcing visuals on them that their minds are not geared toward. Its not a game of how many people you can offend or run off because they don't belong in your group. This behavior doesn't make you much of an Ambassador of anything. People do not have weak minds. Their minds just pick and choose what they deem inappropriate because you never know when someone has been abused, raped, or whatever evil people do to them. We wanted to have a little consideration. If you extend consideration it is extended to you.
Another question asked was could we generate content without death photos and still be relevant. Relevance was tossed out the window after that because it was a reminder of how people or groups do things to get all kinds of attention; good or bad. People seeking relevance need to go to Hollywood and play the tabloid game.
Another thought was did we want to make the blog like everyone else or copycat people as a competitive edge? No.
There is something about personally made blogs. If you have ten of the same things people tend to have way too many choices and better make your work a outstanding one or it will gets passed over because its the same old-same old.
Don't be a grape snatcher either.. This person or business sits back, wandering the private and public profiles of their followers just so they can find their next best thing under the guise of "sharing" or "product research" when in fact they are watching you do all the work then pulling the grapes off your vine. Once these are pulled they bask in the abundance of your work while your grapevine is now empty and you can't make your own wine.
There are also people that don't know themselves or are just holding a grudge and go "borrow" from other people then take it in as their identity as mimics do and believe their own lie. At the end of the day they will realize that someone else was in their head and what they made was not completely theirs to begin with.
Recently I read someone's words about writing a college paper. Here at the AOFH the decision was made that we would try to use original content. If there is something worded in a text that would support our critique or argument then credit would be given to that person or source. Its the right thing to do. Additional photography could come from free photo-sharing sites or deceased people where copyright is no longer an issue. The other issue was taking people's personal photos and using it to build a base while taking advantage of their love of outdoor sports to promote ourselves here at the blog. When people who hunt share personal photos of themselves and one person is sitting back taking all that information and building things for themselves then all those "followers" are empty handed except for an "atta boy" while taking and taking. Online posters to such sites are merely fireflies dancing around a lantern. When their energy has been exhausted, die and then replaced by a new blinded firefly. After a while the entity that reigned supreme over this online site or realm then brushes the dead away and basks in the glow of other people's endeavors.
They say when someone emulates you, it should be a compliment but that means less than a handful of times. When it becomes chronic, I would guess they are not doing it because they hold you in high regard. One way for online people to get your ideas is to friend you. After that they run rampant in your pages so they can go back to their dark corner of the world to do whatever it is they do and call it their own while building their facade for relevance in whatever group they call friend or foe. The truth of the matter is, with online blocking of participants, you can easily find what is the same as yours because Google + or Facebook puts it in your sites as what you have in common. Imagine that?
Wait til these nameless souls have an identity crisis while looking around at the match house they built only to find it burning while whispering, "This is not me." The true people they treated like crap will be long gone. It always happens. Lonely at the end.
We try not to hate on people but some attitudes have us rolling in the hay barn come nightfall such as the--born with a silver spoon in the mouth people. They either choke on that spoon with their haughtiness or need a good half a bottle of black draught to relieve them of the problem once the silver spoon gets caught in their social digestive tract. I have met some grossly wealthy people who were not pretentious and accepted you no matter what. I have unfortunately also been in the company of people holding their head up so high they look like a turkey chicks about to drown when it rains. There are also the types that want to be the braggart leader and threaten anyone who rocks their little world. To them I say, "Grow up and get over yourself. Your days are numbered." I will say for these people I still hope for a spark of humanity in the shallow empty sausage casing they walk around in. The unproven truth is there is no substance inside and if there is maybe its hidden by the facade. Why? Because this individual is taking from everyone else. (Sit back and see who gives themselves away.)
While our fearless non-leader is gone we have put up some more personal pictures for your viewing. Staff will be going back over the writings and adding more interesting content which will be posted in a couple of weeks if not sooner. Enjoy your time and remember to be the person you are and not the reflection of someone you think you should try to be or what looks good.
Be yourself that is all that matters.
Written by: W Harley Bloodworth
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
