Writing Disgruntled I became aware of another issue with Ric and got stuck on... Ric says "I apologize for this person’s actions." I find that very obnoxious. Who is he to apologize for my actions?? Who is he?? I can apologize for my daughter, she is my child after all, and she is still not of age. I can and I actually should apologize for my daughter's actions if I see that she caused someone trouble, did something she shouldn't have done. I can even apologize for her actions when she becomes an adult, after all, she is my child and I've raised her. But even then, I'd find it a bit obnoxious to apologize for an adult person's actions. And I'd only do it if it is a very grave issue, like if she harms someone, steals etc., not oh she wrote something to someone on the internet and oh my God, they might have been bothered!

Or perhaps my husband can apologize on my behalf. Depending on the circumstances. For example, if I have done something wrong unawares and he becomes aware of it first. He may say sorry for what I have done. He knows me, he knows that I'd be sorry too if I knew about it. We have a very close relationship with him, we represent a family, a one front to the outside world.
     But who is Ric? He has no relation to me. It is so patronizing of him to apologize for my actions. He obviously does not know his place.
     The only thing Ric has the right to do is to take responsibility for getting people included in such a mess and being the unintentional intermediary causing such "harassment." Ric can only apologize for his actions, not mine. Not another adult's!
     The contrary is insolent. But we knew that from his previous actions and non-actions to correct his mistakes. So nothing new here.

Just recently, I rented my summer house in Turkey. Being in Italy, I put someone else in charge. Not being there to supervise things myself, I bought some fruits and ice-cream to the guests thinking there might be some shortfalls of the house. When the guests arrived, they complained. They said the house was not clean. I said "I am sorry." I didn't say "Oh I am sorry on behalf of the person in charge." I didn't say "I apologize for the person in charge not cleaning the house." I said "I am sorry. I take the responsibility." And I offered to pay some of their money back.
      The person in charge is supposed to apologize to me and the guests if he has the opportunity. As for me, I take responsibility and apologize for the inconvenience of the guests on my own behalf! To me, that's what maturity calls for.

Oh, Ric did not issue any public apology for his slander against me, for something he broadcast through all his media. But he is apologizing publicly for a personal message I wrote to one of his patreons!!!! Woooow!! What a great personality!!!!

And I don't think the other two patreons were bothered at all. The only person who could have a right to complain was Stephen. And Ric is issuing a public apology for that on someone else's behalf! But when it comes to the huge wrong he has done me, oh not a word! Of course, the only thing he is concerned about is his financial interest, the goal is not to compromise that. He doesn't have an ethical responsibility towards his guests or any feeling of guilt for defaming someone. What kind of a person is this?!
     If his interests are compromised, he apologizes even for someone else's actions. Sorry, of course it's easy to apologize for someone else I suppose. Where is the manhood Ric? Where is the maturity to stand up and take responsibility for what you have done?

I'm waiting Ric... Take up responsibility and apologize for your defamation. Stephen apologizes to me for misleading me with a thumbs up and for his unkind response. I am ready to apologize for my nasty retort. Only after both of you take your responsibilities in this situation. I am the one who was wronged in the first place and I am the one who this situation caused the most unease and stress to.

Click to read to find out The Best Sleeping Pill...
It's not what you expect.

I haven't been able to sleep lately. I mean my sleep routine has been turned upside down since the lockdown. I started staying up late and getting up late. It happened gradually. I thought I'd be getting back to the normal routine when schools reopened. But seeing the constant postponing and finally the decision to be closed for this semester, I let go.
    Whereas my husband, as a slave, sorry as an employee, had to keep up his normal routine. So we are on duty for the house with my husband. It's not a bad arrangement. This way his work doesn't bother me so much as we have only one space and one work station. When husbandish and daughter go to bed, I can work in peace.

However, now that we will be going to Turkey for the first time in ten years by ferry and by car, plus too many stressful things to settle over there, plus too many decisions to make for the selling of our current house, the construction of the new, the moving plans, the change of schools for Lara etc. I have literally been overwhelmed after the calm and peaceful period of the lockdown. I have never been a good sleeper but I was going to bed at 3:00-4:00 am and sleeping around seven hours. The last couple of days I started going to bed at 6:00 am, not being able to sleep, then getting up to work more instead of turning around and around in bed, then going back to bed at 8 am, dozing off a bit, waking up at 10:00-10:30 am to start this unhealthy routine all over again.

Carlo suggested I take some camomile, or some alcohol. Camomile might be relaxing but it doesn't put me to sleep. As for alcohol, I cannot have more than a couple of sips, which is not of much help.

All of a sudden, I had a bright idea! I said “I'll be putting on Ric's podcast when I come to bed tonight, it won't bother you, right? I won't put it up too high,” I said to Carlo. Luckily, he is a classic man and he sleeps the moment he lays down and puts his head on the pillow. It irritates me so much when at times I say I'm going to sleep, he comes next to me and says he will only rest, then he starts snoring even before I start winding down!

Anyway... I don't know how I did not think of this before! as I have fallen asleep a couple of times when I said I'll listen to the podcast in the bedroom not to disturb my working husband. The voices or the tone of the interview is so dull, the questions so boring that it is difficult to listen to as hard as you try. Your mind drifts off. And then you drift off to sleep.

Luckily, the podcast worked like a charm and put me to sleep in my direst moment. I finally got a good rest. Thanks Ric!

Haha! I gave out a good laugh when I was listening to Ric's podcast Counting Countries on Very Hungry Nomads

and heard him say:
“Also, a quick note to some of my listeners and supporters. A former guest on Counting Countries who is a bit disgruntled has been harassing some of my listeners. I apologize for this person’s actions and hope you have not been overly inconvenienced.”

Hahahaha :)))
He is talking about me of course :)))
It's interesting he didn't mention my name. Neither did he use a pronoun to refer to my sex. No giveaways as to who the mysterious disgruntled person in question is ;) I bet he constructed the sentence carefully. I don't think he “feared” that I'd again start with “Oh you saying that I am harassing people is defamation” etc.
I don't know what's the point of that note was, not that I care.

Have I been harassing people? I don't think so.
But I know what Ric is referring to of course. He doesn't tell the story, just throws dirt on people without any evidence. He has made the judgement that I was harassing, so that's it. He doesn't tell people the whole story and let them decide for themselves.
Anyway... For anyone that may be interested, here is the whole short story:

Sure, I was disgruntled. “A bit disgruntled”?? You bet I was a lot disgruntled at Ric's baseless accusations, when he slandered me publicly and did not post any apology for it. So I wrote a post making A Call to Ric Gazarian's Patrons

Then I went on Facebook and found them there. Only four of them. And sent this short message to them.

Now... Would you call this harassing? I wouldn't. There is no harassment here. It is just one “disgruntled” person as Ric put it, making a call, trying to campaign for correcting a “perceived” wrong and unethical broadcast. It is just two lines, takes a minute to read. If people are not interested, they are not obliged to click and read the link and can simply discard my message.

Facebook does not publish messages from people you are not friends with on your Messenger openly, they are very non-invasive; they simply show you that you have a message from this person. Then, if you click to read and interact, fine. You connect and from then on you can both see if the other person is online. If you find the message or the person to be bothering, you can simply click the “I do not want to hear from this person” message that Facebook displays at the bottom of all unsolicited messages. All set and done.

Now... I had sent the above message to four people. I did not hear any word from three even until now. And I did not bother to resend or do anything. I do not care. My task was to write and tell my story and share. It is out of me. If anybody is interested, they read. If not, I do not force anyone to anything, not that I can either. I am insistent when I believe someone has done wrong; however, I do NOT harass people. I just let my thoughts out, express myself and go about my business when I am done.

I never get any feedback or returns to any of my writings/solicitations. I have no expectations of people. But in this case, I was surprised! You see how Stephen Rothwell responded to my message, right? He put a like!
    I said “Hmm?? Perhaps he got what I was trying to say and he will stop supporting Ric.”

I felt like I needed to thank him. Also, getting encouragement from Stephen's like, I wanted to ask something. Because you see, I am always trying to understand people's actions and the reasons behind them. So I wrote and said: "Hello, thanks. May I ask why you are supporting Ric? Just out of curiosity..."

You see, I am trying to get support for my Mission to Every Country to Burn Passports to Protest Birthplace Racism and Global Apartheid. I thought knowing/understanding why people support others might give me some insight into my endeavor.

And the answer I got from Stephen was: "I don't care about your problem with Ric. Please don't contact me again.
My first reaction was Hoppalaaa! (That's a Turkish word for Gosh!) “Why did you bother to put a thumbs up then?? Yeah, all you people are strange.”

But I was really bothered. Seriously... You may not be interested, you may not want to hear from someone, but there seriously is totally no reason for you to be mean like this. No reason for meanness. Unnecessarily. I wasn't a pest who was tugging at his shirt. I sent a simple message, which he put a like to and upon which I asked a simple question. Seriously... You don't treat people like shit. You don't just hit an old woman who only held an open hand to you asking for your help. Go on walking your way, you don't need to help. But don't be mean. Be ignorant/dismissive of people kindly.

I know there are millions of people out there asking for something, either money, or your signature on a change.org campaign, or calling for help for someone in need of blood, school money, help for finding shelter for cats and dogs etc.  I understand... We are bombarded with these through social media. I understand... We cannot just dig into all of these and care for even a couple of these. The most we do is click a button, relieve our conscience and move on. But again, seriously... We don't have to be mean towards people who ask something from us.

I don't think Stephen had a right to respond to me like that. Especially after he put a like to my message. Perhaps he did it by mistake. But please, please... Take up responsibility if you have given the wrong impression to someone by mistake. I wrote to him first and asked.
       “Then why did you put a like?”

I expected an answer at that point. No answer. Or for him to block me. He did neither. Then I thought hard about it: Whether to write something else or not. As obvious, I decided yes. I do not care what people think about me. Especially not those who are incapable of looking at themselves and the trouble they cause others.

To hell with any unnecessarily unkind person in this world. I'm trying to understand. He might have been upset, and might have responded like that. But no, he doesn't have a right to take out on me whatever unpleasantness he had. That's no excuse. Besides, if you do, you should be ready for repercussions like mine. Yes, I was upset. It felt like a slap on my face. And for no reason. I felt like a child slapped for asking an innocent question. I was fed up. Seriously... There are simpler and less aggressive ways to get people out of your life in the cyber world. Helloooo.... There is the block button.

I was very upset about him responding to me like that. I can never think of being so dismissive of anybody who has not done me any harm. Plus, he is giving me an order, and I don't take kindly to orders. Yes, there is a "Please" before the "Don't contact me again," but it's still an order. You know why?? Because it is something he could have taken action himself. If we ask other people to do something when we could simply solve it ourselves, it is definitely an order. There is a subtle difference there. Between kindly asking, requesting something from someone or being dominating.

I waited for him to respond to my question about why he put a like then? Just for him to say "It must have been by mistake" or something. I waited two days. No response.

Then... For the first time in my life, I wanted to be mighty like these people, so uncaring about others. Be mean like them. That's the language they understand.

If you call this harassing, then yes, I "have been harassing some of Ric's listeners."
I beg to differ.

Did I like writing and sending that? Well, no.
Do I think it was a nice thing to do? Not really.
But do I regret it? Hell no.
I don't like aggressive people who do not care about others. And I learnt, or rather life taught me to treat them in kind. So I don't care a bit about him or Ric either. Writing is my way of getting the poison people inject in me out. So that's it.

And oh sure, I blocked him right after sending that message ;)


Disgruntled II- Who can you apologize for?

Click to read to find out The Best Sleeping Pill...
It's not what you expect.