Hearing what we want to hear?

As I sit here trying to get much work done, I am thinking of the ritual of posting and commenting - in blogs, forums and any other post/reply format. For the many years that I have participated in online communicative spaces, there has not been a lack of misunderstanding, left turn tangents and 'say what??' moments. When each person reads something, a book, newspaper article or review, we come to it with our own baggage. Our own perspectives and ideas of the situation. So when we are given the opportunity to comment on what we read, often the replies reflect this self-centered perspective.

This is not always a bad thing. It opens the lines of communication into other people's point of views. But at other times, it can get frustrating when it seems like someone just isn't getting the point of what was intended in the original post. Instead of it being a space of open give and take of pov's, it turns into a 'I am right' kind of posting session, without regard to the potential idea that it wasn't quite the point. When I see this happening on threads, a little high pitched voice creeps into the back of my head reminiscent of my mother's voice telling me that we only hear what we want to hear.