From a stranger's blog (20 feb entry):
I've had a livejournal in various forms (including talkingpoints and tsun_wee) for just over a year now, and I've earned quite a nasty reputation for myself. People have variously called me anal retentive, asshole, bitch and a sad lonely man. Some people have even deleted my comments from their journals, others have deleted me from their friends list, and at least one person has banned me from commenting in his journal.
But no one has convincingly refuted any of the things that I've written.
Occasionally, someone has the balls or the exhibitionist streak to say something nice about me publicly (see http://www.livejournal.com/users/miak/39978.html) though they don't have to. They don't have to not because my feelings aren't hurt (I don't have any feelings anyway), but because I have never thought that truth or sensibility needed defending.
I do what I do because my mind will waste away if I let it idle. I write the way I write because I believe that truth and sensibility are best administered precisely, concisely and unambiguously. Yes, there is room for me to be more forgiving and polite, but that would involve unnecessary words. No, I don't point out your mistakes - spelling, grammatical, numerical or logical - because I want to show how smart/sharp/flawless/mean/anal-retentive I am. I do it in the hope that people will learn from their mistakes and not commit the same spelling/grammatical/numerical errors again. As for logical problems, I do it to share angles that people may not have considered before and to help them sharpen their thinking. Sometimes someone tells me that I've misunderstood what they wrote. Usually it turns out that they weren't very precise in expressing themselves in the first place and I help them to clarify their thinking or writing.
I make mistakes too. Just ask cowie and scummy - who like to pick on my mistakes. And I take it in a positive spirit. If they're right, I rectify the mistake. I usually forget to thank them, but I do appreciate their looking out for me. If I disagree, we'll discuss it. I don't call them names (either to their face or behind their back), delete their comments, get upset with them, delete them off my friends list, try to defend an illogical argument tooth-and-nail or take the high road and pretend that the outcome of the argument doesn't matter.
You lose some, you win some.
A number of people have cold-added me to their friends list for whatever reason. I used to write better and more substantively in the past than I do nowadays. That's ironic because I have more time to think about things nowadays than in the past. The reason for the downturn in quality is that I've also been distracted by a lot more things lately. Just put up with this (and the vulgarity) for a little while longer.
I'm rebranding. I'm changing.
For the better, hopefully.
*
I wish people process their thoughts like him. Those in italics and bold, I italic-sed and bold myself, to highlight my absolute agreement. But he's definitely more concise than I ever will be.
I've had a livejournal in various forms (including talkingpoints and tsun_wee) for just over a year now, and I've earned quite a nasty reputation for myself. People have variously called me anal retentive, asshole, bitch and a sad lonely man. Some people have even deleted my comments from their journals, others have deleted me from their friends list, and at least one person has banned me from commenting in his journal.
But no one has convincingly refuted any of the things that I've written.
Occasionally, someone has the balls or the exhibitionist streak to say something nice about me publicly (see http://www.livejournal.com/users/miak/39978.html) though they don't have to. They don't have to not because my feelings aren't hurt (I don't have any feelings anyway), but because I have never thought that truth or sensibility needed defending.
I do what I do because my mind will waste away if I let it idle. I write the way I write because I believe that truth and sensibility are best administered precisely, concisely and unambiguously. Yes, there is room for me to be more forgiving and polite, but that would involve unnecessary words. No, I don't point out your mistakes - spelling, grammatical, numerical or logical - because I want to show how smart/sharp/flawless/mean/anal-retentive I am. I do it in the hope that people will learn from their mistakes and not commit the same spelling/grammatical/numerical errors again. As for logical problems, I do it to share angles that people may not have considered before and to help them sharpen their thinking. Sometimes someone tells me that I've misunderstood what they wrote. Usually it turns out that they weren't very precise in expressing themselves in the first place and I help them to clarify their thinking or writing.
I make mistakes too. Just ask cowie and scummy - who like to pick on my mistakes. And I take it in a positive spirit. If they're right, I rectify the mistake. I usually forget to thank them, but I do appreciate their looking out for me. If I disagree, we'll discuss it. I don't call them names (either to their face or behind their back), delete their comments, get upset with them, delete them off my friends list, try to defend an illogical argument tooth-and-nail or take the high road and pretend that the outcome of the argument doesn't matter.
You lose some, you win some.
A number of people have cold-added me to their friends list for whatever reason. I used to write better and more substantively in the past than I do nowadays. That's ironic because I have more time to think about things nowadays than in the past. The reason for the downturn in quality is that I've also been distracted by a lot more things lately. Just put up with this (and the vulgarity) for a little while longer.
I'm rebranding. I'm changing.
For the better, hopefully.
*
I wish people process their thoughts like him. Those in italics and bold, I italic-sed and bold myself, to highlight my absolute agreement. But he's definitely more concise than I ever will be.
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