last week I received e-mail from a heckler, who began his letter to me with
a direct personal insult. As there is nothing to gain from interacting with
people who display negative/toxic behavior, I refused to discuss anything with
the heckler. He responded with more insults, of course. I asked the moderator
if the heckler was a member of veg-raw; turns out he is not. The heckler
was reacting to an old post of mine, the one that refuses to end here - the
post on raw food assumptions where I give counter-examples to the saying "health
comes only from healthful living", and discuss other topics. Anyway, if anyone
on this list is sending my posts to others, please inform them that they must
be civil and courteous in all communications with me if they are seriously
interested in a discussion. Of course I reserve the right to not participate
in any discussion.

Now, before discussing recent posts that are, in my opinion, "toxic", let me
publicly thank [log in to unmask], Michele Reel, Judy Pokras for their many
positive followup questions/comments on my posts. If all followups to my posts
were so well done and positive, this list would be a real pleasure to read.

Unfortunately, some of the recent followups to my posts have been, in my
opinion, negative and therefore "toxic".  Please note again clearly that all
the following is in my opinion.

I invite readers to read followups to my posts, not just for information
content, but for emotional tone/nature as well. Does the followup have a
positive/neutral tone, or is it strident, narrow, containing ego, anger,
hostility, and/or other negative emotions? If the followup is full of
negativity, does that raise doubts regarding the mental health of the poster?
Readers will make their own decisions on this point.

Because of the negative emotional content, it is actually painful for me to
respond to posts that I feel are negative/toxic. This is because I must focus
on the post, exposing me to its negative energy, in order to write a response.
As an example of a post that is negative (in my opinion), the recent post that
suggests that raw fooders who eat raw protein foods may be "transitional" raw
fooders. I suspect that Viktoras, Gabriel Cousens, Ann Wigmore (if she were
still alive), Brian Clement, many of the natural hygiene writers, and so on,
would be shocked to learn they are merely "transitional", and therefore not
"real" raw fooders! Some raw fooders might find the suggestion to be insulting,
while others might dismiss the assertion as an obvious delusion, and a possible
indicator of mental imbalance.

It is appropriate here to mention that some of my posts have contained criticism
of certain raw food practices/philosophies. However I have tried to be positive
whenever possible: in criticizing raw meat eating, I explicitly said instinctive
vegetarianism was OK; in criticizing fruitarianism because of its similarity to
eating disorders, my post showed that motivation (spiritual growth rather than
obsessive fear of protein, mucus), was the key to a fruitarian diet. So one can
be quite critical, but still have, or at least try to have, a neutral or
positive tone in their posts. I also admit that on a very few occasions, I have
posted in haste and made a few posts that I wish I could "take back" and
rewrite - not for information content, but to make the tone more positive.
(Most of the posts in that category were on the old veg-raw list).

In the future, beginning with the veg-raw mailing following the one that this
appears in, I may choose to merely express the opinion that followup posts
by others are negative or toxic, and refuse to respond. Such a choice will be
exercised on a case-by-case basis. The reason for not responding is to avoid
promulgating energy that I consider negative or "toxic".  Unfortunately, this
means there may be times when I ignore posts that contain misinformation,
invalid logic, gross mis-interpretations of my posts, and so on.

I have enjoyed writing on veg-raw and hope to continue in the future. I also
encourage other readers to post on veg-raw, and note that the hostile followups
to my posts, present a serious disincentive to others considering posting here.
Those who want to post followups to my posts are welcome, so long as they don't
lace the followup with negative, hostile energy!  With best wishes for the
many positive readers of veg-raw....

Tom Billings
[log in to unmask]