- Logtar's Blog -

If you think that the power of knowing what people really think about you would be an awesome one, think again. Most people that you meet never tell you how they really feel. Some people don’t want to know how you really feel either. Some don’t know how to express their feelings, some just simply don’t want to, some are just kites left the winds of change and whatever is popular or accepted by their current group to follow is what they do.

A recent conversation with someone was really eye opening for me. I personally try to get to know people before judging them, and if at all possible I try to converse about things before making assumptions. If you have ever ran a bulletin board you might be familiar with the concept of backrooms, a place where the moderators talk about issues that is only seen by them. Sometimes there are conversations about a person you are bringing into the moderator group, and you “clean up” those post if that person makes it in.

What happens when someone does not clean up those conversations before you get a new moderator in? Lets call it over-sharing.

I won’t go into the mess that it can create. It is at best amusing at worst hurtful, but through the situation I got to learn something that had someone calling me naive. Funny enough this was not the first time that I had seen similar situations both online and in real life. I have been in a motorcycle message board for years as part of the backroom and also seen situations when others find out what is said behind their back about them.

One thing about me is that I do like being a happy person all the time. It might not be sustainable forever or in every situation but I sure as heck try. The thing about it is that one of the things that it entails is thinking the best of people and try not to become jaded. I don’t expect for people to psychoanalyze each other without conversation first, and when it does happen that you try to figure someone out or come to a conclusion about them, I think it is important to discuss it with that person. The issue arises (at least in my experience) when the person that you talk about is not part of the conversation.

Granted when you are choosing a new moderator that person is not part of the conversation, but then the conversation should be cleaned up, burned or whatever. People online seem to have a persona, what they put out there, but it is often quite different from who the person really is. It is worse when the conversation might make insinuate that someone has no depth to them.

I guess I am in the minority once more when I think that you can only get to really know people through conversation and that assumptions about them are best checked well, with them. I guess it is naive of me to want to get to know people before I assume I know them, but it seems to be common practice. I am not sure if this is purely cultural or not. I guess this society grows up putting people in the jock, chess geeks, cheerleader and outcast groups.

So are you a person that gets to know people and check your assumptions with them? or do you draw conclusions based on first impressions or the “group” you think they fall under. Its weird that it sounds exhausting to people to get to know others, I think that is the fun of human interaction. Every person is a world and there is lots to learn about them. I guess I am as naive when I did know for a fact that the biggest issue with not having cleaned up a backroom was to left evidence of assuming someone is one dimensional.

It seems that now you go through a midlife crisis when you hit 30 rather than in your 40s. That is what I am starting to realize about people around my age. Why are we having this happen earlier? Or is it that we really are not growing up until we turn 30?

The current economic climate is making people think more than ever. The “when poop hits the fan scenario” is not that impossible now. Recession? Revolution? Rebellion?

Those are things that used to sit quietly in history books, but now more and more seem to be back in the newspaper. Or rather internet publication, because even newspapers are going away.

I am always curious to see how each generation feels about their identity. I am kind of stuck in the middle of a couple of generations because of several factors… so I am not quite a kid of the 80s or the 90s. I have a little of both. Then the whole being in Colombia in the 80s and being in the US in the 90s makes it even more difficult to define what my generation really is.

The people I am putting in the peer bucket are the ones from their late 20s to their mid 30s. We are talking a lot about accomplishments, who recognizes them, what they really mean to them and others. Also, who would survive the post apocalyptic world and who would not. The common theme though in the end is, who am I and what defines me.

I had a good laugh recently when someone in an discussion tried to establish superiority by rattling off their employer and salary to let the other person know their “worth.” It seems that some people are really stuck on thinking that money is the only think that can define people, or that shows how successful they are.

It is still baffling to me that people take their own lives. It makes me sad. Then I realize that so many people in life have tried to tell me personally that I am not worth it, or that I could have been a doctor, or a lawyer, that it would have made me “worth” more. I wish that everyone could shut up the furies of the world and live a life where we all know how much we are truly worth.

My midlife crisis has been happening for a while now. I have re-evaluated relationships in my life and reconnected with people over the last couple of years. I still have plenty of places where I could have better relationships with people, but that is where my focus is now. I think that is what makes people rich.

One of my old chess partners and I discussed the topic of where to live… Colombia or here in the U.S. my take away out of that conversation was simple. It really does not matter where you live, it matters who you share your life with. Hopefully all of the people that go through a midlife crisis, or even those that even think of suicide as an option see that the connections, the true connections they have with people is what makes life worth living.

While a lot of people, my wife included, are discussing the current state of affairs in the world, I am a little more concerned with the future. While I might not be as extreme as Peter Thiel saying “I Don’t Consider [The iPhone] To Be A Technological Breakthrough” he does make a good point.

I have been reading a lot about Steve Jobs lately. I actually have to claim a free copy of the book from audible (if I did not miss the chance already.) On the excerpts that I have read though, he was not as much of an inventor but more of a tinkerer.

The part that troubles me is censorship. Sure, we might all have computers in our pockets, but are we going to get more information from them or less. Seriously, just follow the current SOPA noise and you will see that eventually we might be getting a lot less.

“The techno-ignorance of Congress was on full display. Member after member admitted that they really didn’t have any idea what impact SOPA’s regulatory provisions would have on the DNS, online security, or much of anything else,” said Adam Thierer, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center.[79] ” “One by one, each witness—including a lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America—said they weren’t qualified to discuss…DNSSEC”, CNET reported.

Edited information is not new… I mean all of our news sources are edited for content most of the time. True unfiltered information is hard to come by… but what if that extended to also the books you read. That is the conversation that DeGuia and I were just having.

The other part that makes me uncomfortable is that while innovation in today’s sense of the word might be creating convenience and comfort, it is really not creating new jobs. Not here in the US anyway.

Not sure how close we are to all being replace by robots or not, but I seriously think that we are being distracted by a lot of “issues” and not really looking into the future. Like Theil brings up we need to make progress when it comes to transportation, health and energy.