Do we need to charge at windmills?

This picture of the famous Don Quixote is one I often see online. The other day I stumbled upon it again, and it got me thinking...

Gosh, some people really feel the need to charge at windmills as a highly regular part of their lives!

I have one particular blogger in mind as I write this, but she is certainly not the only one guilty of this. She will merely be the example I use for this post to illustrate a point.

This blogger I'm speaking of writes a blog that discusses some survival ideas in a changing world. Her goal is admirable, to be sure...and I have gotten many good ideas from reading her blog. I think we can all agree that times are getting rather shaky around the edges, and learning to fend for yourself is not only smart (given the possibility of the necessity of those learned skills), but also will save you and your family a great deal of money! It also helps bring us and our families closer to the kind of quality life that many of us value from 'The Olden Days' (tm).  For those of us who are trying to live more closely attuned to nature, learning to grow your own food (for example) is a subject very near and dear to my heart!

My problem is that many of her posts (and, again, I am not trying to single her out, as I've seen many bloggers that do the same...) begin with a rant about how the blogger feels the need to defend herself against some criticism she got from the previous post. This then becomes the theme: a post and then a follow-up defensive/argumentative post.  When I look back at the original posts, and check out the comment section, I might find maybe 1 or 2 people who posted a criticism...and even those are often stating more a difference of opinion rather than discounting every single word the post had contained.  

The other 10 comments are usually positive and supportive - but the blogger rarely speaks to the posts that agree with her, but rather takes the ones that disagree with her and uses it for an excuse to go on a rant in her next post.  She'll go RIGHT AFTER those that criticize her. Gosh, I can't imagine I'd want to keep commenting on someone's blog who did that to me just because I didn't agree with them!

I happen to have met this blogger in real life, and I know her to be a rather abrasive, bitter, competitive, and pedantic gal.  This is not to say she doesn't have positive qualities, because she certainly DOES. Those positive qualities keep me reading her blog, and so I just try to overlook the rest.

I just have to ask myself: Is it necessary to always be in such a heated state of awareness?  I'm not talking about being informed, active in one's local issues, and feeling upset about policies and events around us that can create living conditions in our area (and our world!) that are undesirable to us.  What I'm talking about is being so quick to rush to defend oneself in such a heated way.  I'm talking about opening oneself up to the criticism of others (by writing in a blog) and then getting all defensive and angry when people post opinions about the post that the author might not agree with!

As a blogger, I expect people are not always going to agree with me.  I would appreciate it if people would do so respectfully (and I have noticed that many people DO take the time to be as respectful as possible when stating a differing opinion).  If someone posts something that I find offensive or attacking, I would simply not approve it (and her blog is set up so that she must approve all posts as well, so the power is completely in her hands).  Rather than delete comments she doesn't like, she uses them for an excuse to go on a tirade about it.

My idea of real freedom is to live a happy life!  I can't do that if I'm always worrying if people agree with me or not! If someone finds value in my ideas, then GREAT! If not, they are welcome to ignore my ideas! I want to draw more peace and tranquility in my world. I want the kind of freedom that comes from (in my dream world): living off the grid, growing much of my own food, living in peace with my friends and neighbors, and raising my kids to be respectful of the earth, their own bodies, and of others around them.  THIS, to me, is thriving happily!

Who are people like this trying to convince of their 'rightness'....their readers, or themselves?