Monday, February 07, 2005
Enlightenment from Joel Osteen
On 1-30-05, I wrote about the movie "Magnificent Obsession," and the epiphany I'd gotten from it; ever since that night, my mind has been orbiting around and around the idea that the very fact of having belief in something, whether deity or otherwise, that has "power" either unlocks our own power, taps into the power of that something, or both. With perfect synchronicity, I remembered to watch Joel Osteen tonight, and he had some astonishing input:
The way he explained it, you're NOT limited to your own power when you try to take actions that are beyond what you've done before; because God wants you to keep learning, growing, moving forward and expanding your horizons, if you get to the end of what you yourself can do and continue to try to make progress because you believe that God will help you, God will give you some of his "supernatural power" (Osteen's exact phrase) so that you can achieve more than you ever dreamed possible. All you have to do is believe, and make the choice to give the presumably impossible (for you) thing a shot, and BOOM, it's done.
How many THOUSANDS of times have you heard someone who has accomplished something amazing give the assistance of God most or all of the credit? As a non-believer, I've always dismissed this, but what if it's TRUE? Not the part about there being a God, as I have no proof either way about His existence, but the idea that these achievers WERE able to receive power via their belief that DID make it possible for them to succeed?
What do all the self-help gurus and well-meaning loved ones tell you to encourage you to succeed? Believe in yourself. BELIEVE. I've always seen that as a psychological thing, since, if you do NOT believe in yourself, you can hold yourself back from succeeding, and if you DO believe in yourself you'd try your hardest, and I still think that's valid... but what if it's NOT the only benefit you get from believing in yourself? What if, again, the very act of believing CREATES the success?
You think you know that the verb "believe" means, know what you're doing when you believe... but, what if it's like using your muscles, where you want to walk and your legs move, but it's sort of a "black box" phenomenon, because you have no idea how your nerves, muscles, tendons and whatever cause your legs to move? What if, when you experience active belief, you're putting something into motion, something as unknown in action as the messages traveling down your nerves are unknown to you? What if "to believe" actually means "to activate the part of your brain that can tap into power far beyond what you normally have access to"? The power may be within you, waiting, it might come from a deity, it might be floating all around us... it doesn't really matter in a way, because you don't have to know where it comes from to be able to use it.
One of my recurring themes is that our thoughts create the world, create reality, create karma, and that the stronger of emotions you attach to thoughts, the more powerful they become; what if the greatest possible power we can wield is accessed, not just via thought, not just via deeply emotional thought, but by thought backed by BELIEF? What if we can use this knowledge to sculpt reality in the same way that prayer has been proven to do, the same way those of us who practice affirmations have seen that we can do... but FAR more powerfully? Is belief the bridge between us and the energies of the unknown? Is this why every culture has developed a belief SYSTEM of some kind, the certainty that there's something, or somethingS, with special powers that can be accessed by human beings just for the asking?
Can it really be that simple?
The way he explained it, you're NOT limited to your own power when you try to take actions that are beyond what you've done before; because God wants you to keep learning, growing, moving forward and expanding your horizons, if you get to the end of what you yourself can do and continue to try to make progress because you believe that God will help you, God will give you some of his "supernatural power" (Osteen's exact phrase) so that you can achieve more than you ever dreamed possible. All you have to do is believe, and make the choice to give the presumably impossible (for you) thing a shot, and BOOM, it's done.
How many THOUSANDS of times have you heard someone who has accomplished something amazing give the assistance of God most or all of the credit? As a non-believer, I've always dismissed this, but what if it's TRUE? Not the part about there being a God, as I have no proof either way about His existence, but the idea that these achievers WERE able to receive power via their belief that DID make it possible for them to succeed?
What do all the self-help gurus and well-meaning loved ones tell you to encourage you to succeed? Believe in yourself. BELIEVE. I've always seen that as a psychological thing, since, if you do NOT believe in yourself, you can hold yourself back from succeeding, and if you DO believe in yourself you'd try your hardest, and I still think that's valid... but what if it's NOT the only benefit you get from believing in yourself? What if, again, the very act of believing CREATES the success?
You think you know that the verb "believe" means, know what you're doing when you believe... but, what if it's like using your muscles, where you want to walk and your legs move, but it's sort of a "black box" phenomenon, because you have no idea how your nerves, muscles, tendons and whatever cause your legs to move? What if, when you experience active belief, you're putting something into motion, something as unknown in action as the messages traveling down your nerves are unknown to you? What if "to believe" actually means "to activate the part of your brain that can tap into power far beyond what you normally have access to"? The power may be within you, waiting, it might come from a deity, it might be floating all around us... it doesn't really matter in a way, because you don't have to know where it comes from to be able to use it.
One of my recurring themes is that our thoughts create the world, create reality, create karma, and that the stronger of emotions you attach to thoughts, the more powerful they become; what if the greatest possible power we can wield is accessed, not just via thought, not just via deeply emotional thought, but by thought backed by BELIEF? What if we can use this knowledge to sculpt reality in the same way that prayer has been proven to do, the same way those of us who practice affirmations have seen that we can do... but FAR more powerfully? Is belief the bridge between us and the energies of the unknown? Is this why every culture has developed a belief SYSTEM of some kind, the certainty that there's something, or somethingS, with special powers that can be accessed by human beings just for the asking?
Can it really be that simple?
Sunday, February 06, 2005
The Cube Game: The Analysis
If you didn't read yesterday's post, don't read this one yet, as it'll give it all away; scroll this post off the screen, read yesterday's post, and see if you want to play the game before you read MY warped answers.
The first thing to reveal is what the 3 things we envisioned symbolize: the cube is you, the ladder is your financial/work situation, and the horse is your ideal romantic partner. The analysis of your answers will be alot like dream analysis, in that everything will be symbolic of something else, and only YOU can tell which of the possible symbols have the right "feel" to them; for example, if your horse is white, it might mean that you want to be "rescued" (from the idea of Prince Charming on a white horse), or that you want a partner who's "pure" (a virgin), or "angelic" (very sweet). For every detail you wrote down, then, think of how it might translate into a statement about what it was secretly describing. Some more examples of interpretation are: If your cube is glass, it could mean that you're feeling emotionally fragile, or exposed (people can "see right through you"), or that everything seems clear to you as to what direction to take your personal life, or that you're feeling nearly invisible right now. If your ladder is gold, that can mean that you see yourself as wealthy now, or are sure that you soon will be, or that you're "golden" at work and will soon get promoted, or that you think it's time to "go for the gold" and make a big change. With all that in mind, here are MY answers:
My cube is a Borg spaceship; if you're not familiar with what this looks like, there are pics here
http://1desktop.tripod.com/borg.jpg
http://www.terrace.qld.edu.au/moo/borg/borgcubeexterior.jpg
As to what this choice of cube says about me; that I watch too much Star Trek, maybe, lol? The ship is gigantic, so we can assume that my ego isn't undersized; the overwhelming power of the vessel, the skill of the Borg it contains, their relentlessness and focus, all tie into my feeling of personal power, of my confidence in my ability to accomplish things. The appearance of the Borg into human affairs is always fraught with danger, so the ship seems menacing; that reflects my lifelong desire to stop being Ms. Nice Guy and do the WRONG things for a change (alas, it'll never happen).
My ladder is fairly near the cube, standing perfectly vertical, stretching up and up so that the top isn't clearly visible, and is made of a translucent mother-of-pearl type substance; its height, the beauty of it, the fabulousness of the material, the way it contains all the colors, all speak of how good things are now in these areas in every way, and how hopeful I feel about the future. In addition, the "ladder to heaven" aspect hasn't escaped me, and makes me wonder if my spiritualism will lead to wealth or success for me somehow, or at least enhance what I already have in some way.
My horse is a soft golden color, with a somewhat lighter mane and tail; it's wearing a simple leather bridle, and is placidly grazing, roughly sideways to the cube. The fact that the horse is EATING clearly reflects my husband... and so does the presence of the bridle, hehehehehe. The sunny color, and pastoral calmness of its demeanor, though, point to the sort of tranquil, happy mate that would certainly make ME more relaxed, and thus would be in many ways ideal; my spastic, disaster-causing husband is way off here, but I'll keep him anyways.
I hope you got a kick out of this game; if you try it on friends, or even your partner, you'll find that at the very least it'll stimulate some interesting conversations. Their analyses of your answers will show you how they think of you; if YOU came up with something like the Borg ship to represent yourself, though, you might wanna pass. ;-)
The first thing to reveal is what the 3 things we envisioned symbolize: the cube is you, the ladder is your financial/work situation, and the horse is your ideal romantic partner. The analysis of your answers will be alot like dream analysis, in that everything will be symbolic of something else, and only YOU can tell which of the possible symbols have the right "feel" to them; for example, if your horse is white, it might mean that you want to be "rescued" (from the idea of Prince Charming on a white horse), or that you want a partner who's "pure" (a virgin), or "angelic" (very sweet). For every detail you wrote down, then, think of how it might translate into a statement about what it was secretly describing. Some more examples of interpretation are: If your cube is glass, it could mean that you're feeling emotionally fragile, or exposed (people can "see right through you"), or that everything seems clear to you as to what direction to take your personal life, or that you're feeling nearly invisible right now. If your ladder is gold, that can mean that you see yourself as wealthy now, or are sure that you soon will be, or that you're "golden" at work and will soon get promoted, or that you think it's time to "go for the gold" and make a big change. With all that in mind, here are MY answers:
My cube is a Borg spaceship; if you're not familiar with what this looks like, there are pics here
http://1desktop.tripod.com/borg.jpg
http://www.terrace.qld.edu.au/moo/borg/borgcubeexterior.jpg
As to what this choice of cube says about me; that I watch too much Star Trek, maybe, lol? The ship is gigantic, so we can assume that my ego isn't undersized; the overwhelming power of the vessel, the skill of the Borg it contains, their relentlessness and focus, all tie into my feeling of personal power, of my confidence in my ability to accomplish things. The appearance of the Borg into human affairs is always fraught with danger, so the ship seems menacing; that reflects my lifelong desire to stop being Ms. Nice Guy and do the WRONG things for a change (alas, it'll never happen).
My ladder is fairly near the cube, standing perfectly vertical, stretching up and up so that the top isn't clearly visible, and is made of a translucent mother-of-pearl type substance; its height, the beauty of it, the fabulousness of the material, the way it contains all the colors, all speak of how good things are now in these areas in every way, and how hopeful I feel about the future. In addition, the "ladder to heaven" aspect hasn't escaped me, and makes me wonder if my spiritualism will lead to wealth or success for me somehow, or at least enhance what I already have in some way.
My horse is a soft golden color, with a somewhat lighter mane and tail; it's wearing a simple leather bridle, and is placidly grazing, roughly sideways to the cube. The fact that the horse is EATING clearly reflects my husband... and so does the presence of the bridle, hehehehehe. The sunny color, and pastoral calmness of its demeanor, though, point to the sort of tranquil, happy mate that would certainly make ME more relaxed, and thus would be in many ways ideal; my spastic, disaster-causing husband is way off here, but I'll keep him anyways.
I hope you got a kick out of this game; if you try it on friends, or even your partner, you'll find that at the very least it'll stimulate some interesting conversations. Their analyses of your answers will show you how they think of you; if YOU came up with something like the Borg ship to represent yourself, though, you might wanna pass. ;-)
Saturday, February 05, 2005
The Cube Game: The Questions
This weekend, I thought I'd take a break from rants and ramblings and toss out something like those endless quizzes we see everywhere. This game has been alleged to be many centuries old, and to have been used as a tool for deep personal analysis all that time; I don't know about any of that, but I've used it a bunch of times with wildly divergent groups of people, and the general consensus is that it DOES provide a great deal of insight... I've come out with analyses of total strangers' answers that they thought pegged them exactly, so it's not just people twisting their answers to fit their perceptions of themselves or doing this for their friends. In any case, it's FUN, so give it a shot; if you're brave, post your answers on your blog (and include a link to this post for people to see the questions for themselves, of course). Here goes:
Get a pen and paper ready to write down your responses as they come up, because at the end you'll have forgotten half of it if it wasn't written down. Picture a flat, featureless landscape; plain dirt or sand, and a clear sky-no distractions or embellishments. Then, somewhere in the landscape, picture a cube, a ladder, and a horse. See them clearly before reading further.
.
.
.
.
.
Got it all in your mind? OK, now get ready to write:
For the cube: What exactly does it look like? What's it made out of? How big is it? What color(s) is it? What position is it in? How does it make you feel? Write down every detail, no matter how seemingly trivial.
For the ladder: Answer the same questions for this one, and also describe how it's positioned in relation to the cube.
For the horse: Answer all the previous questions, and add: How is it positioned relative to the ladder (as well as to the cube)? What, if anything, is it doing? Are there any items such as a saddle or a wagon there with the horse?
Hang onto your answers; I'll post the analysis "rules" tomorrow, along with my own answers and analysis (which I'm leaving out for now so as to not influence anyone or give anything away). Apologies for making you wait; it'll be more interesting, as well as accurate, this way, honest.
Get a pen and paper ready to write down your responses as they come up, because at the end you'll have forgotten half of it if it wasn't written down. Picture a flat, featureless landscape; plain dirt or sand, and a clear sky-no distractions or embellishments. Then, somewhere in the landscape, picture a cube, a ladder, and a horse. See them clearly before reading further.
.
.
.
.
.
Got it all in your mind? OK, now get ready to write:
For the cube: What exactly does it look like? What's it made out of? How big is it? What color(s) is it? What position is it in? How does it make you feel? Write down every detail, no matter how seemingly trivial.
For the ladder: Answer the same questions for this one, and also describe how it's positioned in relation to the cube.
For the horse: Answer all the previous questions, and add: How is it positioned relative to the ladder (as well as to the cube)? What, if anything, is it doing? Are there any items such as a saddle or a wagon there with the horse?
Hang onto your answers; I'll post the analysis "rules" tomorrow, along with my own answers and analysis (which I'm leaving out for now so as to not influence anyone or give anything away). Apologies for making you wait; it'll be more interesting, as well as accurate, this way, honest.
Friday, February 04, 2005
The thrill of spontaneity
I was tempted to leave this post blank... because, as far as I'm concerned, there IS no thrill. All being "spontaneous" means is that you didn't take the time to plan... and how is NOT planning, NOT thinking things through, NOT pondering all the options, NOT preparing for all eventualities, going to make something BETTER? Oh, I know that some people are just too lazy to work things out in advance, and cover for their irresponsibility by calling themselves "spontaneous," but people who ARE capable of looking before they leap ALSO sing the praises of spontaneity... in fact, nearly everyone I've ever heard comment on the subject has praised it, and to me that's just CRAZY.
Say there's a movie you'd like to see; the pro-spontaneity crowd claims that just dropping everything and running out the door to see it would somehow make the movie BETTER than if you planned a trip to the theater... but how can it, when it's the identical movie either way? The same thing goes for dinner at a restaurant, a weekend out of town, sex... it's the same activity in the same place whether it's planned or not, so how does spontaneity make any of it better?
I've asked people, and the answer is always, "It's something I can't really explain..." Yeah, that's a BIG help... well, actually, it IS in a way, because when someone claims to not be able to explain a feeling that makes no sense, it's a sure sign that on some level they KNOW they're being illogical, but don't want to admit it.
I also wonder how it's POSSIBLE for people to be spontaneous; don't we all have work to do, phone calls to return, kids and pets to feed? Don't we all have busy lives, with stuff that needs doing every minute? What happens to all that stuff when people are being spontaneous? "Sure, let's let the dog go hungry a few extra hours so that we can spontaneously go out tonight; so what if he eats all our shoes and barfs them up on the bedspread?" "Sure, let's let mom think we're dead in a ditch because we didn't return her phonecall within 24 hours; let's spontaneously go away fro the weekend." If you're only being "spontaneous" at days and times when nothing is going on, you're in fact NOT being spontaneous, and if you actually HAVE days and times with absolutely nothing going on... I can't even IMAGINE that, so I can't comment.
When people say that they want to find a spontaneous romantic partner, what exactly does that mean they're looking for? Someone who doesn't care about their responsibilities, and will therefore blow things off to go do something frivolous with them? Someone with no LIFE, who can thus do anything at any time with no harm done? Someone unwilling, or unable, to think ahead, to plan, to organize? What about any of that would be desirable in a mate?
When people say that they themselves are spontaneous, what are they saying about themselves, and why do they think it's praiseworthy?
I understand that this must be one of those things that's programmed into everyone that I'm lacking, that for everyone to love spontaneity there HAS to be something about it that fires off the adrenaline in a "normal" person; despite that, I'm gonna make my pitch for the REAL thrill... PLANNING. There's absolutely no activity you can imagine that couldn't be made better if it was thought through and planned out, so that every element is optimal. An activity where everything goes perfectly has GOT to be better than one where there are problems, not to mention the worry about problems that a reasonable person would be expected to have, both about the activity itself and because they dropped everything from their busy life and left it all hanging to be spontaneous.
Last but far from least is perhaps the greatest benefit of planning; anticipation. Any desirable activity will naturally generate anticipation, and the longer in advance you plan, within reasonable limits, the more anticipation you can have; since anticipation is a strongly pleasurable feeling, why give it up just to be able to say "I was spontaneous"?
Life's too short to make less than the most of any chance to have fun; I'd take having the best out of any situation over having the "thrill" of spontaneity any day.
Say there's a movie you'd like to see; the pro-spontaneity crowd claims that just dropping everything and running out the door to see it would somehow make the movie BETTER than if you planned a trip to the theater... but how can it, when it's the identical movie either way? The same thing goes for dinner at a restaurant, a weekend out of town, sex... it's the same activity in the same place whether it's planned or not, so how does spontaneity make any of it better?
I've asked people, and the answer is always, "It's something I can't really explain..." Yeah, that's a BIG help... well, actually, it IS in a way, because when someone claims to not be able to explain a feeling that makes no sense, it's a sure sign that on some level they KNOW they're being illogical, but don't want to admit it.
I also wonder how it's POSSIBLE for people to be spontaneous; don't we all have work to do, phone calls to return, kids and pets to feed? Don't we all have busy lives, with stuff that needs doing every minute? What happens to all that stuff when people are being spontaneous? "Sure, let's let the dog go hungry a few extra hours so that we can spontaneously go out tonight; so what if he eats all our shoes and barfs them up on the bedspread?" "Sure, let's let mom think we're dead in a ditch because we didn't return her phonecall within 24 hours; let's spontaneously go away fro the weekend." If you're only being "spontaneous" at days and times when nothing is going on, you're in fact NOT being spontaneous, and if you actually HAVE days and times with absolutely nothing going on... I can't even IMAGINE that, so I can't comment.
When people say that they want to find a spontaneous romantic partner, what exactly does that mean they're looking for? Someone who doesn't care about their responsibilities, and will therefore blow things off to go do something frivolous with them? Someone with no LIFE, who can thus do anything at any time with no harm done? Someone unwilling, or unable, to think ahead, to plan, to organize? What about any of that would be desirable in a mate?
When people say that they themselves are spontaneous, what are they saying about themselves, and why do they think it's praiseworthy?
I understand that this must be one of those things that's programmed into everyone that I'm lacking, that for everyone to love spontaneity there HAS to be something about it that fires off the adrenaline in a "normal" person; despite that, I'm gonna make my pitch for the REAL thrill... PLANNING. There's absolutely no activity you can imagine that couldn't be made better if it was thought through and planned out, so that every element is optimal. An activity where everything goes perfectly has GOT to be better than one where there are problems, not to mention the worry about problems that a reasonable person would be expected to have, both about the activity itself and because they dropped everything from their busy life and left it all hanging to be spontaneous.
Last but far from least is perhaps the greatest benefit of planning; anticipation. Any desirable activity will naturally generate anticipation, and the longer in advance you plan, within reasonable limits, the more anticipation you can have; since anticipation is a strongly pleasurable feeling, why give it up just to be able to say "I was spontaneous"?
Life's too short to make less than the most of any chance to have fun; I'd take having the best out of any situation over having the "thrill" of spontaneity any day.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
The birth of a lurker
Just imagine; you come online, and you have your choice of places to go where lots of people who share your interests are posting away, and everyone in each "place" considers everyone else a friend, and treats them accordingly. You'd HAVE to imagine it, because the psychology of online life is such that it just doesn't EXIST; I've gone through more clubs, forums, groups, and message boards in my years online than you'd believe if I told you, and have come to the sad realization that, although oftentimes forum members put up posts patting themselves on the back for what a "family" they have, the reality always ends up being very, VERY different:
A tiny % of forums do NOT have ugliness raging across them at regular intervals; these forums are heavily and properly moderated, and they generally circle around something technical or intellectual. They're mostly pleasant enough places, but they're NOT friendship groups, and the atmosphere is a little snobby, with those who are seen as "experts" setting the tone and people either following, or opposing with terse politeness until they get tired of not being able to debate strenuously (aka FIGHT) and leave.
There are certainly "clubs" (such as Yahoo and MSN have) I've seen that had a central core of seemingly chummy people and lots of posting... but, over time, and I mean less than a year in each case, the core always "broke up," and what was left was the sort of nearly-dead place that most online clubs become.
Then, there are those forums where a group of hateful no-life types have taken hold; they form a clique based on their mutual desire to be able to exclude others as they are excluded in real life, and circle their lives (they always have thousands of posts, and new ones popping up at all hours) around coming to that forum and attacking viciously anyone who isn't EXACTLY to their liking, ie one of the clique or someone who grovels to them (how sad are THOSE people, who are so desperate for acceptance that they'll do ANYTHING to be allowed to participate in a group?). There are always newbies showing up that they can lord over and abuse, so this sort of forum can stay active forever, and, sadly, it's a common "format."
And lastly, there's the sort of forum that seems nice at first; there's alot of personal stuff being posted, supportive replies, everyone has alot in common... if you like whatever it is that THEY like that the forum is based on, you'll feel happy to have found them. Sooner or later, though, usually sooner, you'll begin to notice the undercurrents of tension, and, given a month or so at most, you'll see it; someone says something to someone else, and suddenly the entire place erupts in name-calling, personal insults, ugly language, threats, ganging up, snide comments about how the admin staff and/or elder members "rule" everything unfairly, demands that certain people leave or be kicked out, melodramatic pronouncements by some of the main troublemakers that they're thinking of leaving (in an attempt to sway people's sympathies), and often references to some other, usually newer, forum, chatroom, or whatever that's "better" that people are told they can come to to get away from the awfulness of the original board. It doesn't matter what the forum is about, if it doesn't fall into the previous categories it ALWAYS ends up this way; I've even seen this sort of thing on the medical discussion boards on WebMD (which tend to evolve into communities of a sort). The mods on that site are PAID, and so will usually stop it within a few hours, but until then people act like rabid dogs... with other people who are SICK!!
I never thought to consciously sum up all of my observations, and those by many other people I've gotten to know online over the years who've also cruised lots of forums, with the realization that there simply is NOT, in the long term, such a thing as a forum that is a TRUE friendship group, until my buddy Gary made a post on his excellent blog about the behavior on a WEATHER forum; aside from my dismay that such a thing even exists (as discussing weather seems only slightly more exciting than watching paint dry), I was amazed to see quotes of recent posting there that were EXACTLY like what I've been writing about:
http://bibbsrevenge.com/index.php?p=564
The posts he quotes could have been lifted nearly word for word from every forum I've ever seen; even with something you wouldn't expect people to get hysterical about, weather, WEATHER, people still congregate there to talk about it and act precisely as the folks on other forums do. Reading about it was almost eerie; it MUST say something about human nature that we are clearly utterly incapable of having an active forum where people GET ALONG... something about how we'll act without the usual social restraints, when we can hide behind a screen name and there's no actual penalty for bad behavior... something grim.
What's also grim is that now I have to consciously accept that, no matter how cool a forum and its members seem when I first get there, I KNOW that it will end up turning ugly (unless it's too heavily moderated to allow real personal interaction), and so I have to keep in mind that if I decide to become involved, I need to NOT waste time and energy trying to get chummy with people, because long before the relationships become meaningful I'll have to depart the forum to keep their in-fighting from stressing me out... so why get involved at all? Forums that are of the intellectual/technical type are useful to get some quick answers, but debating things with strangers isn't a productive use of my time, and always gets tense if not outright nasty (and what's the point in investing so much time with people that you aren't moving towards friendship with, in any case?), so there's no reason for me to establish myself in that sort of place, either. Hmmmmmmmmmm...
The people I know and respect in real life do NOT "do" forums; until now, it never occurred to me that this should have been a red flag. Granted, without having TRIED forums, they can't be acting from actual knowledge of them, but they seem to have understood instinctively that focusing "social energy" on them would be a bad idea; I'm going to be asking some questions and seeing what they have to say, because there are clearly some lessons to be learned from how "normal" people have analyzed the situation.
Why did *I* get into forums when none of my friends did? In my previous post, I referred to my love of novelty things... and to me, being able to be in a whole GROUP of people who loved the same obscure band or old TV show or offbeat entertainer or whatever that I did was a BIG novelty. It still is, to a degree, but my way of dealing with it is going to have to change:
We all know what a "lurker" is; maybe they register on the forum, maybe they even occasionally post, but for the most part they just treat it like it was a magazine... read what they want and move along. I never until this moment understood WHY a person would EVER choose to lurk rather than join in; now, I see that this is actually the smartest way to deal with a forum. I'd never have believed it, but... I'm going to start being a lurker. I'm going to resist the urge to jump in and exchange "hi, welcome, thank you, I like that, yeah me too" with people whose names I won't remember in a couple of months; I'll absorb whatever information is available, feel the warm glow of not being totally alone in liking weird stuff, and surf on to something else.
Gary's post, the one that started this cascade of thoughts, was posted on the 5 year "anniversary" of the day I stumbled into my first online club (remember Excite clubs?); I kid you not, the EXACT DAY. Coincidence? Nope. :-)
A tiny % of forums do NOT have ugliness raging across them at regular intervals; these forums are heavily and properly moderated, and they generally circle around something technical or intellectual. They're mostly pleasant enough places, but they're NOT friendship groups, and the atmosphere is a little snobby, with those who are seen as "experts" setting the tone and people either following, or opposing with terse politeness until they get tired of not being able to debate strenuously (aka FIGHT) and leave.
There are certainly "clubs" (such as Yahoo and MSN have) I've seen that had a central core of seemingly chummy people and lots of posting... but, over time, and I mean less than a year in each case, the core always "broke up," and what was left was the sort of nearly-dead place that most online clubs become.
Then, there are those forums where a group of hateful no-life types have taken hold; they form a clique based on their mutual desire to be able to exclude others as they are excluded in real life, and circle their lives (they always have thousands of posts, and new ones popping up at all hours) around coming to that forum and attacking viciously anyone who isn't EXACTLY to their liking, ie one of the clique or someone who grovels to them (how sad are THOSE people, who are so desperate for acceptance that they'll do ANYTHING to be allowed to participate in a group?). There are always newbies showing up that they can lord over and abuse, so this sort of forum can stay active forever, and, sadly, it's a common "format."
And lastly, there's the sort of forum that seems nice at first; there's alot of personal stuff being posted, supportive replies, everyone has alot in common... if you like whatever it is that THEY like that the forum is based on, you'll feel happy to have found them. Sooner or later, though, usually sooner, you'll begin to notice the undercurrents of tension, and, given a month or so at most, you'll see it; someone says something to someone else, and suddenly the entire place erupts in name-calling, personal insults, ugly language, threats, ganging up, snide comments about how the admin staff and/or elder members "rule" everything unfairly, demands that certain people leave or be kicked out, melodramatic pronouncements by some of the main troublemakers that they're thinking of leaving (in an attempt to sway people's sympathies), and often references to some other, usually newer, forum, chatroom, or whatever that's "better" that people are told they can come to to get away from the awfulness of the original board. It doesn't matter what the forum is about, if it doesn't fall into the previous categories it ALWAYS ends up this way; I've even seen this sort of thing on the medical discussion boards on WebMD (which tend to evolve into communities of a sort). The mods on that site are PAID, and so will usually stop it within a few hours, but until then people act like rabid dogs... with other people who are SICK!!
I never thought to consciously sum up all of my observations, and those by many other people I've gotten to know online over the years who've also cruised lots of forums, with the realization that there simply is NOT, in the long term, such a thing as a forum that is a TRUE friendship group, until my buddy Gary made a post on his excellent blog about the behavior on a WEATHER forum; aside from my dismay that such a thing even exists (as discussing weather seems only slightly more exciting than watching paint dry), I was amazed to see quotes of recent posting there that were EXACTLY like what I've been writing about:
http://bibbsrevenge.com/index.php?p=564
The posts he quotes could have been lifted nearly word for word from every forum I've ever seen; even with something you wouldn't expect people to get hysterical about, weather, WEATHER, people still congregate there to talk about it and act precisely as the folks on other forums do. Reading about it was almost eerie; it MUST say something about human nature that we are clearly utterly incapable of having an active forum where people GET ALONG... something about how we'll act without the usual social restraints, when we can hide behind a screen name and there's no actual penalty for bad behavior... something grim.
What's also grim is that now I have to consciously accept that, no matter how cool a forum and its members seem when I first get there, I KNOW that it will end up turning ugly (unless it's too heavily moderated to allow real personal interaction), and so I have to keep in mind that if I decide to become involved, I need to NOT waste time and energy trying to get chummy with people, because long before the relationships become meaningful I'll have to depart the forum to keep their in-fighting from stressing me out... so why get involved at all? Forums that are of the intellectual/technical type are useful to get some quick answers, but debating things with strangers isn't a productive use of my time, and always gets tense if not outright nasty (and what's the point in investing so much time with people that you aren't moving towards friendship with, in any case?), so there's no reason for me to establish myself in that sort of place, either. Hmmmmmmmmmm...
The people I know and respect in real life do NOT "do" forums; until now, it never occurred to me that this should have been a red flag. Granted, without having TRIED forums, they can't be acting from actual knowledge of them, but they seem to have understood instinctively that focusing "social energy" on them would be a bad idea; I'm going to be asking some questions and seeing what they have to say, because there are clearly some lessons to be learned from how "normal" people have analyzed the situation.
Why did *I* get into forums when none of my friends did? In my previous post, I referred to my love of novelty things... and to me, being able to be in a whole GROUP of people who loved the same obscure band or old TV show or offbeat entertainer or whatever that I did was a BIG novelty. It still is, to a degree, but my way of dealing with it is going to have to change:
We all know what a "lurker" is; maybe they register on the forum, maybe they even occasionally post, but for the most part they just treat it like it was a magazine... read what they want and move along. I never until this moment understood WHY a person would EVER choose to lurk rather than join in; now, I see that this is actually the smartest way to deal with a forum. I'd never have believed it, but... I'm going to start being a lurker. I'm going to resist the urge to jump in and exchange "hi, welcome, thank you, I like that, yeah me too" with people whose names I won't remember in a couple of months; I'll absorb whatever information is available, feel the warm glow of not being totally alone in liking weird stuff, and surf on to something else.
Gary's post, the one that started this cascade of thoughts, was posted on the 5 year "anniversary" of the day I stumbled into my first online club (remember Excite clubs?); I kid you not, the EXACT DAY. Coincidence? Nope. :-)
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
A romantic day
My husband and I had one of the various anniversaries that we celebrate (don't ask, lol) today; he came home with a special gift that he'd meant to get me for my birthday last year, forgotten about, and redeemed himself by surprising me with it today. I didn't buy him anything, as he prefers things that I create, and I had a couple of ideas:
I love novelty items, so when I saw an ad for pens that were meant to draw on glass, I had to have 'em; a few days ago, I drew something on the bathroom mirror that I knew my husband would really get a kick out of, which he did... and then did NOT put the fan on when he showered the next day, and the condensation washed it all away, sigh. He wasn't expecting me to make the effort again so soon, but I DID, and it made him very happy; I hope he doesn't stop taking showers in order to protect it this time, unless he's got a gas mask for me, or at least a clothespin for my nose. ;-)
That wasn't the only thing I made for him, though. Knowing my love for novelty stuff, he'd gotten me an even odder kind of pens a few months ago; they contain food coloring, and are thus safe to write on FOOD with... you can still eat it afterwards. Today, I got out a bag of plantain chips, fished out a bunch of the unbroken ones, and began writing out a message for him, one letter per chip (they're round and about an inch across); because the surface of the chips is rough, salty and a little greasy, the ink did NOT want to transfer, and it ended up taking almost half an hour... but eventually I had it all laid out and ready for him. As I admired my handiwork, I thought of a Zits cartoon from some years ago in which the teenage girl laboriously chooses from a package of those tiny candy hearts with messages on them to make a heart on the teenage boy's desk with a collective message that seems right to her; when the boy shows up, he shouts, "Hey! Candy!" and sweeps it all into his mouth without noticing the heart-shaped arrangement or reading the messages... and she bonks her head on her desk in frustration. When my husband saw MY creation, he said, "Imagine if I just tossed them all in my mouth like in that cartoon." I replied, "I thought of that cartoon when I made this," and we both laughed.
We may fight like cats and dogs, but we never doubt that we belong together. :-)
I love novelty items, so when I saw an ad for pens that were meant to draw on glass, I had to have 'em; a few days ago, I drew something on the bathroom mirror that I knew my husband would really get a kick out of, which he did... and then did NOT put the fan on when he showered the next day, and the condensation washed it all away, sigh. He wasn't expecting me to make the effort again so soon, but I DID, and it made him very happy; I hope he doesn't stop taking showers in order to protect it this time, unless he's got a gas mask for me, or at least a clothespin for my nose. ;-)
That wasn't the only thing I made for him, though. Knowing my love for novelty stuff, he'd gotten me an even odder kind of pens a few months ago; they contain food coloring, and are thus safe to write on FOOD with... you can still eat it afterwards. Today, I got out a bag of plantain chips, fished out a bunch of the unbroken ones, and began writing out a message for him, one letter per chip (they're round and about an inch across); because the surface of the chips is rough, salty and a little greasy, the ink did NOT want to transfer, and it ended up taking almost half an hour... but eventually I had it all laid out and ready for him. As I admired my handiwork, I thought of a Zits cartoon from some years ago in which the teenage girl laboriously chooses from a package of those tiny candy hearts with messages on them to make a heart on the teenage boy's desk with a collective message that seems right to her; when the boy shows up, he shouts, "Hey! Candy!" and sweeps it all into his mouth without noticing the heart-shaped arrangement or reading the messages... and she bonks her head on her desk in frustration. When my husband saw MY creation, he said, "Imagine if I just tossed them all in my mouth like in that cartoon." I replied, "I thought of that cartoon when I made this," and we both laughed.
We may fight like cats and dogs, but we never doubt that we belong together. :-)
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Some odds and ends
I finally got around to reading the Sunday funnies from the weekend before last, and I was really impressed by, of all things, "Family Circus"; their website doesn't seem to have a way to access strips from the recent past, so I'll try to explain what it looks like. First, there's a yellow box that says, "Last November a 'Family Circus' Sunday cartoon showed Dolly viewing a firefighter on TV advising homeowners to know in advance which possessions they would take with them in case of fire." Then, there's a drawing of a pile of toys by a door, with the caption "It resulted in Dolly placing her 'choice possessions' inside the front door." Next, there's "Bil" at the drawing board, saying "Cute, but wrong! A flood of e-mails and letters from concerned firefighters and other readers pointed out my error. Here's the correct message." In the next pic, Dolly is watching a firefighter on TV, who's saying "All members of a family should immediately evacuate any premises upon discovery of a fire," and the caption adds, "Children need to know the only possession they should remove from a burning home is THEMSELVES." In the final "scene," "Bil" is sitting in the corner on a little stool; Jeff says "Daddy's sittin' in the corner!" and Dolly replies "I think Mommy sent him there."
I've gotta say, this was as beautifully-handled as any retraction I've ever seen; he explained the problem, admitted he was wrong, showed the proper message, and then rounded up with a little self-deprecating humor... and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better way to handle it the next time YOU have to apologize for inadvertent wrongdoing.
If you've read through my links list recently (and you SHOULD, because they're all top-quality blogs), you've noticed that at the bottom I've put in a quote of the day thingie; what makes this worth a mention is that the darned thing is set up to use ALL of the width of the space you put it in, and so was sticking out WAY beyond the other things in my sidebar... and this problem led to me learning something new. I studied my template, trying to figure out how the commands there formatted the page, and, after a few false starts that SEEMED to be solving the problem but were destroying the ability of the blog to "scale itself" for different screen sizes, I made what for me was a huge leap; I did a little research, figured out how "the h's," the specifications called h1, h2, etc, were pre-defining formatting "rules" that were used later in the template, and... I mimicked the way the other h's were set up, selected the commands I'd need from other parts of the template (they're largely self-explanatory, luckily), and defined h7, which limits the width of the element and gives it an easily-readable font size. It WORKED!! My husband, who's made some websites from scratch but was at a loss as to what to do to fix this situation, was duly impressed... especially when I did the victory dance. ;-)
Let's see, what else... oh, right; I FINALLY saw "The Village" today. I can see why some folks loved it, and why some folks hated it; I don't want to spoil the surprises for any readers who still haven't seen it, as no one spoiled them for ME and it made a big difference, so I'll just say that it's very unusual, and well worth watching.
Last, but far from least; I passed 30,000 hits today!! :-)
I've gotta say, this was as beautifully-handled as any retraction I've ever seen; he explained the problem, admitted he was wrong, showed the proper message, and then rounded up with a little self-deprecating humor... and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better way to handle it the next time YOU have to apologize for inadvertent wrongdoing.
If you've read through my links list recently (and you SHOULD, because they're all top-quality blogs), you've noticed that at the bottom I've put in a quote of the day thingie; what makes this worth a mention is that the darned thing is set up to use ALL of the width of the space you put it in, and so was sticking out WAY beyond the other things in my sidebar... and this problem led to me learning something new. I studied my template, trying to figure out how the commands there formatted the page, and, after a few false starts that SEEMED to be solving the problem but were destroying the ability of the blog to "scale itself" for different screen sizes, I made what for me was a huge leap; I did a little research, figured out how "the h's," the specifications called h1, h2, etc, were pre-defining formatting "rules" that were used later in the template, and... I mimicked the way the other h's were set up, selected the commands I'd need from other parts of the template (they're largely self-explanatory, luckily), and defined h7, which limits the width of the element and gives it an easily-readable font size. It WORKED!! My husband, who's made some websites from scratch but was at a loss as to what to do to fix this situation, was duly impressed... especially when I did the victory dance. ;-)
Let's see, what else... oh, right; I FINALLY saw "The Village" today. I can see why some folks loved it, and why some folks hated it; I don't want to spoil the surprises for any readers who still haven't seen it, as no one spoiled them for ME and it made a big difference, so I'll just say that it's very unusual, and well worth watching.
Last, but far from least; I passed 30,000 hits today!! :-)
