@chrismjones » writing

The Power of the Internet

Christopher Jones — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:18:25 +0000

It began last night as reply to a simple tweet. After awhile, a couple of friends had jumped in and tweets were flying back and forth, all in good fun. And then things were kicked into the next gear. An email was received saying one friend had been tagged in a Facebook post by another. I suppose twitter’s character limit just got to… limiting.

Over the next couple of hours, there were over 200 comments across 3 profiles by 6 friends. Comments were coming in as fast as you could refresh the pages, each funnier than the last. It was an excellent evening among friends. Friends who are separated in some cases by other a thousand miles. Friends who live in 4 cities across 3 states.

It was as close as these friends were going to get under normal circumstances. And it was all spontaneous because the infrastructure was already there to support it. No one had to set up a meeting time for a conference call. No one had travel. No one had to think about it. No one had to contact the others to say “hey, get on facebook!”. No, Facebook just emailed whoever was tagged in the initial post. GNotify notified whoever wasn’t logged into their email account. Or maybe the email was pushed to their smart phone.

This is the true power of the internet. Sure, you can get up to the second data or buy the latest junk while in your pajamas or read the news from a foreign newspaper. But bringing people together is what it is all about. This is why I work on the web. This is why I bury myself in technical specs and obsess over layouts at one in the morning. It is all about bringing friends, both old and new, together. The web is about giving people the ability to live better lives, to live happier lives.

Sometimes we just need to be reminded why it is we got into our chosen profession, whatever it is, and why we have decided to stay there. For me, this is it. If at the end of the day, people aren’t better off and happier than when they started, then I have not succeeded. So I will keep reading specs, and doing research, and experimenting with code into the depths of night, because this is what drives me.

Why do you do what you do?

~ Christopher]

Too Honest?

Christopher Jones — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:33:08 +0000

I have always been of the opinion that people should be completely honest with each other. I had never met people who were¹, but it seemed a good idea if your relationships could survive past the first year of it. Recently, I was given pause when I finally met someone who is completely open in his assessments. And I really wasn’t ok with it.

While it has never been something I felt able to put into practice, blunt honesty always seemed to be better for everyone in the long run. Perhaps painful as hell over the next few months, but beneficial in the long run. The trick in my mind is figuring out which of your relationships it is applicable for. The trouble is that in order for someone to be honest with you in a way that is constructive and good for long term growth, they have to both care for you and know you well. Now I think that many friends will grab each other when they think the other is about to do or say something stupid, but for most, it should have never reached that point.

Your friends know your faults. Your closest friends know your faults better than you do, they know all the places that you don’t see, or that you have blown off as not hurting anyone. But they look past them, because that is what friends do. If you’re doing something potentially harmful, they still step in. But we all have these things that aren’t really hurting anyone, but do make like more difficult for ourselves and others. We call them ‘quirks’ or say, ‘well, that is just how she is’, both of which are nonsense. As is often the case, there are a stack of reasons that we don’t confront these things.

One is that there are just more important things going on. My friends’ lives, as well as my own, tend to have so much stress, and are so busy, that most of our quirks can simply wait. They don’t seem important to the here and now. Whether dealing with minor long term quirks is less important that more pressing short term matters is a matter of opinion, I will note that the short term pressing matter will almost always hold our attention.

Also in this same vein is that we simply do not care. My friends have fallacies and if they always have those, they will remain my friends. It is difficult emotionally on both parties to bring up something that will be beneficial in the long term, while making clear that even if the issue remains, it won’t hurt your relationship. People think they need to be perfect, or they think that you need them to be perfect. No… I don’t need you to be perfect. But we might as well try for as close as we can get while knowing we’re loved regardless.

Another, which ties into the previous, is that we aren’t sure how they will take their faults being pointed out. Perhaps they already know, but don’t think it is an issue. Perhaps they are blind to it and will deny their flaws. Perhaps they are so stuck in the issues of today that they refuse to see the importance of correcting their issues for the long term. Perhaps they will think you are being nosey and condescending. Perhaps they get defensive, immediately wondering why you are pointing out their flaws instead of fixing your own, not realizing that you are simply trying to help. And not realizing that perhaps you don’t see your own flaw, because your friend has never pointed it out to you. This one is all down to trust, which is why this could only work in relationships that are strong already. Though it could also work if the people were slightly calloused and highly introspective. I’m just not sure how many of us there are like that, and it leads to its own set of troubles besides.

This last reason is where my issue with the gentleman I mentioned in the beginning comes in. For blunt honesty to work, the people have to know each other. I mean, really know each other. It is not enough for us to be friends, what is required is that we know enough about each other to see the why behind our actions. Not the standard cookie cutter drivel that you can get from any day time talk show, but specifics to that person’s life. Without that, it is too easy to be wrong. Perhaps all I see is the short temper, but don’t see the loneliness behind it. Where the world sees the striving, but not what you are running from. Only those who know you will find and care to work through the heartache behind the facade of arrogance.

It is in this that caused me to reject what the gentleman was saying². He could only approach the symptom. He had no way of knowing if he was correct, though I suspect he often is. He also makes people defensive, as they do not know how to react when they are called out on something. These things require trust, understanding, and a commitment to follow through with the person you are confronting through their process of getting things worked out. He can’t claim to fulfill those requirements.

Even blunt and brutal honesty requires tact.

~ Christopher]

1. Note that this does not mean people I know are not this open with each other. Especially in the case of married couples, I have no idea how they are when they are alone with themselves. I am also not implying that they should be more honest about each other when around me. But I can only state what I observe, not what I assume.

2. The man in question has never called me out on anything, so please don’t think this post is a defensive reaction to anything he said to me. This post is about how his implementation of something I believe to work doesn’t match the method required to make it practical, and was kick-started over something I overheard him say in the past week.

i love a memory

Christopher Jones — Sun, 11 May 2008 03:16:36 +0000

Just tonight, as I was driving home, I realized that what I love is a memory of her. It should have been obvious. I mean, how could it be different? I love who she was. If I drove over to her house tomorrow, I would treat her with the love deserved by who she used to be. I knew her then and that is all I still know. I do not know her now. I can no longer tell you her hopes and dreams. I can no longer tell her why she does the things she does. I am no longer inside her head. I understand the woman I used to know all that time ago, but I know precious little of her today.

I love a memory. And with that knowing I can let the love be a memory as well.

~ Christopher]

*update* After speaking to someone about this post this morning, I thought I should clarify. This post is not about anyone that I suspect any of you know or have ever met. I’m not fickle, so any thoughts you have heard from me recently are all still completely valid. If you thought this post was about someone still active in my life, you are mistaken.

Just wanted to put that out there.

Two Rules for Life

Christopher Jones — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:46:33 +0000

So here’s the deal. It should help you relate to me, assuming you even care to.

Rule 1: I don’t know anything you don’t tell me.

I know, insanity. But mind reading is a pain in the butt, and I’m not real fond of using up all that energy. So let’s just start assuming that if you didn’t tell me a given thing, then I don’t know it. I don’t know how you feel. I don’t know what you think. I don’t know that you had a hard day at work, though honestly I probably do know that, because that’s the type of short term, superficial shit that people talk about. But your long term thoughts and overall plans and opinions of things? Of people? Of our friends? Of me? I have no idea. None. Did you tell me? No? Then I don’t know.

Oh, but you hinted at it? Seriously? Yeah, I don’t care. Screw subtle. No one outside of spy games likes subtle. We’re all good at subtle because we don’t like arguing and we don’t like rejection. So instead we are subtle until we are confident that we are in like minded company. But… everyone is subtle. So no one knows anything. We think we do. We assume we all know what each other thinks. But we don’t. Not really. I used to be like everyone else. I assumed I knew what you thought. What you felt about any given thing. But I don’t really. I might get it right. I could guess and I bet I would be correct most of the time. But do I know? Again, did you tell me? No? Then no, why is this hard?

This also goes for things that you don’t think. Unless you tell me that you don’t think a thing, or tell me that you do think the opposite, I don’t know what you think. Don’t assume silence is an answer. Silence is NEVER an answer. It’s nonsense is what it is. All silence tells anyone is that you may or may not be thinking a certain thing. Which I know is crazy. Maybe it never crossed your mind, so how would you know to comment on it? You wouldn’t, and that’s fine. But today, let me tell all of you out there…

If you didn’t say it to me, I don’t know.

… that’s it for now. I’m working on being more blunt. We’ll see how it works. I’m not doing well, but I’m trying.

I know I only gave one rule, but in the middle of my rant, I forgot where I was going with rule 2, so that can wait for another day.

Related Blogs

Related Blogs on communication
Putting people first » Information and communication technologies …
Employee Communication: 5 Ways Leaders Can Communicate Change …
Pediatrician Rowlett

A Thousand Times ‘No’

Christopher Jones — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 02:25:12 +0000

So I was thinking, and have been on and off for a bit, of just making a series of posts called “I know it’s terrible”, as it seems that that what I want to call most of the posts that cross my mind of late. Since that seems overkill as the posts are often in little way related to each other beyond revealing some twist in my mental process, I just made a new category instead. Yay for wordpress.

So tonight I am sitting in church and someone has a prophetic word during worship and says, “Is it not enough that I died for you?” Now that may not be the exact quote, but it is only off by a word or two if not. Of course, as expected, people had the standard reply that yes, dying was enough. Enough for what? No idea, I find lately that people are oft light on details. This leads us to my “I know it’s terrible” moment. So…

I know it’s terrible, but my first thought after the initial question was “no”, followed in a moment by “no, of course not”. Ok, maybe I don’t know it’s terrible. Am I wrong in this? Did anyone else catch it and was just too polite to force a rephrase? I did note that one of the leadership did say ‘yes, the blood is enough’, which implies in my mind a different ‘enough’ than the original question, so perhaps it was subtly corrected then, or maybe I just heard a question being asked what wasn’t really asked.

I’m positive the speaker’s heart was in the right place, but intentions have never been good enough for me in those settings. Words have the power to sway crowds, so when you are in a group setting, your words need to be very accurate or you risk causing confusion later. Remember, individuals are smart. People/crowds are bleeding idiots.

Is it enough that a woman give birth to a child? If a mother throws her 2 year old out on the street, was it enough that she cared for the child for the first two years? Is it enough that she went through the pains of labor for her child? Assuming the child somehow survives, is the child expected to later respect and love that mother? You might can pull that the child should honor her mother (Exodus 20:12), but beyond that? If the child never wanted anything to do with the mother again, would anyone blame them or say they were wrong? I wouldn’t. I doubt you would either.

Of course one single act from the past isn’t enough. Though as I said, enough for what was never asked. Legally enough? Enough to cover our sins? Well then sure. But that’s like asking if 8 billion dollars is enough for that car I want. Of course it is, that was never in doubt. Since we already know the obvious, the question should be about something else. Is it enough that we don’t need anything else? Is it enough that we don’t want anything else? Is it enough that we should be ok on our own with what we know now?

Then no. No. A thousand times no.