It’s been a growing experience for me. In the past I admittedly have let my passion overrule my good sense and I’ve regretted it every time. This has mostly been work related. Not with friendships, thank goodness.

It’s a time for passon AND patience.

In my maturity, I can compartmentalize people and although I’m not a fan, that comment resonates with me almost daily in my interactions. Excellent post. glad we crossed paths.

It seems if active listening is apart of passionate exchange, then possibly the relating will continue to grow after a disagreement, political season, etc.

And then again too, I wonder if another aspect of thought leadership is taking one’s passion for ideas seriously yet not necessarily one’s self.

I found your blog, Aaron, through Twitter, and I followed your link through Twitter. A fluke for this month, actually, because I am largely disengaging myself from Twitter during the election season. The atmosphere is toxic just before/during/after a presidential debate. It seems there is room for only one political opinion there, and, while I know there are people I follow of all political persuasions, the more conservative types are completely silent during debates.

For full disclosure, I’m a lifelong California Republican who will soon re-register as an independent and supports Barack Obama. How’s that for covering most of the bases? And yet I feel totally alienated by the level of intolerance and unadulterated HATRED I find on Twitter during a Big Campaign Moment. Funny that I should take personally the viciousness that is only halfway aimed at me, but there you go.

And when the election is over, will I make nice and have harmless Twitter (or blog) conversations with those Twitterers/bloggers? I’ll try. I guess that would be coming out of my corner.

Thanks again for a very relevant and thought-provoking post,

Laurie @ Foolery
“Poking People With a Stick Since 1965″

No matter what happens after Nov. 4th, I still got a lot of things on my queue at Netflix and plenty to watch on my DVR.

On a serious note, as someone who has spent more time working on her internal network of blogs and community building relationships, we have a small amount of flaming that does happen, but that is really rare. And I think I might have said this before, but I believe that is because I work in a world of transparency, where your name is your brand and your blog, your wiki contributions, are all connected to you.

We want conversation and different points of view, but not to the sake of feelings getting hurt and trampling on people to get to the top. Your street cred, content, and contributions are what makes you.

Since my presence on the “internet” was mostly all about music promotion in the past. I did seem to get insults and false accusations thrown on me in my industry circles, but all that fades when you consistently produce quality work and no one remembers the BS that bunches your panties for 5 minutes.

Now that I am focusing on getting the information out about Government 2.0 and our use of Social Media, I haven’t found anyone who has made me riled up enough to get upset. Sure, I have seen erroneous information put out by someone I could even call a colleague. I would rather put out the corrections through other means (i.e. trusted media outlets), even if my name wasn’t attached.

My personal opinion, if something makes you heated. Walk away from your computer, put down your blackberry. Its best to come back to it with no emotion and just put out the facts. I think people will trust you on the fact you are passionate, but not letting your emotions drip on your keyboard.

I maybe naive, but I am just speaking from my experience.

My beliefs insult you. Your beliefs insult me. Wars start. For real. Actual wars of this stuff for millions upon millions of years.

You’re right. My post was not dialogue. However the comments did turn into it. So out of my screams did come some good.

Your posts sometimes are not dialogue. And you’ve admitted to that much in this post. Your words have insulted me more than once, yet I understand and attempt to listen to where your passion comes from. The entire relationship with you tends to trump that screaming banshee passion for me, but…that’s me.

There’s work in keeping those relationships, to be sure. But I’ve found it to be worth it.

About the election- I had felt that I could move on from all of this bitterness at the right after the general election, but if someone comes into office who has declared my point of view un-American, it will become difficult to continue to BE an American.