Today I sent out an e-mail to a couple of mailing lists. I had found a movie that may have interested some of the readers so I posted the URL. Then I ended my message with a personal comment and a random quote. Both sometimes appropriate to the e-mail subject.

Later someone posts a rather inflamatory message saying how disrespectful I was in my message. Now, generally when I read such a personal attack I get mad. The first and perhaps natural response is to fight back, fight fire with fire and so forth.

But I calmed down. There are many times, and this is probably one, where badly written e-mails lead to misunderstandings. There is very little context and body language in the written form, and people write things that other people misinterpret.

This is probably one of those times, so I wrote a short message saying that I didn't agree but I apologize if the reader found fault with my message. Now, his message was sent to one of the mailing lists, but my reply was sent to him only since I don't want to start a flame war.

So we'll see if he writes back, or if he harbors this ball of hate towards me. It puzzles me because he accused me of a couple of things that, if he's read my previouse messages, he should have known I wouldn't have meant it that way.

I don't want to get too specific since this journal entry is not about this particular incident, but about etiquette. Personally -- and this is something that's taken me years to get to -- I rarely take things in a bad way. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they had good reasons (at least to them) for their actions.

Most people are not mean on purpose, the ones who are are easy to spot and I just ignore them. Most people also don't make stupid or crazy decisions, at least to them. Many a time have I made a seemingly insane decision because my value system is my own and different than other people's.

My observation is that there a few people who are quick to anger and who will strike out ay anyone and anything that offends them. But, again, most people are quite level-headed and, although they may come to a premature decision, won't necessarily attack, but will wait for more information.

I think that we should all try to be more understanding and not believe that people are bad. There are bad people in the world, but they are a small minority. We shouldn't treat everyone badly because of a few bad apples.

I'm not too sure what point I'm trying to make. I try to treat people decently, no matter what I may think. I do stereotype people and sometimes take things badly. But I try to give people a chance to make that second impression and disprove my suspicions.

There's too much evil in the world. But if we let that affect us, make us distrustful, suspicious, and impolite, we're just letting it win. I try to look through rose-colored glasses, see the good in people and not the bad. And I think that my world is a lot happier of a place than some people's.