Onus of responsibility...

After a long conversation with a good friend I thought I would try to solidify my thoughts regarding what is truly important between people...

I do not want You to like me.

My wanting You to do something is imposing, pressing my views, values, needs and desires on You. Instead, I want to be likable. If everything works out correctly then You get to decide if You like Me or not.

I do not want you to please me.

My being pleased is not Your responsibility. My being pleased is my responsibility. If I am displeased with my circumstance(s) then it is my responsibility to do something for or about myself, not You.

I do want to like you.

And I will like you unless or until you do something that I find unlikable. If that time arrives then it is my responsibility to be honest in my actions. Either I can distance myself from you, denying friendship by the lack of proximity, or I can tell you the truth of my feelings. If the occasion warranted it I might say, "I do not like you when you speak badly of your peers."

In the rare circumstance when I cannot remove myself from a difficult situation I will do the hardest thing I have ever had to do, tell another human being that, "I do not like you."

I can say from personal experience that this statement, "I do not like you." offered directly to another human being has devastating consequences. This is why it is so seldom said 'mano a mano'. More often than not it is alluded to in a gossipy fashion, "Oh, I don't like so-and-so."

The actual expression "I do not like you." is incontrovertible. Once spoken it cannot be rescinded. Once expressed there is a distance between the two people involved that cannot be bridged. When those words are delivered then the most primal foundation of trust is shattered.

[Note: Distancing oneself from an objectionable person or circumstance only relieves the discomfort. It does not resolve the situation.]

I want validation (respect and approval).

As such it is my responsibility to be respectable and be worthy of approval. As well it is my responsibility to know that validation cannot be given before the fact.

A demand for validation is the same as wanting some one to like me.

[I believe the practice of unconditionally protecting Janey/Johnny's self-esteem has had a very detrimental affect on our social values. If every action is met with approval and validation then Jane/John can no longer tell what is truly valid or worth of approval.]

For the record, I ain't...

I ain't erudite.

I ain't got all that book learning at my fingertips so's I can add in all them fancy quotations and citations. I don't know all them intricate linguistical turns of phrase that give substance to the foundation of my writing. I do not have the ability to adequately convey higher order concepts. At least not as well as I might. It is very unlikely that I will ever write a seminal thesis on any given subject.

I do endeavor to speak to issues of the human condition. I attempt to write in a voice that can be heard and easily understood. To that end I take certain liberties. I depend on the commonality of the human experience. I even go so far as to make assumptions about the environment we live in and the experiences we share. I write to reflect my observations of my human condition.

...S'there! I tol' you I weren't erudite. Now do you believe me?

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Read A Commonplace Blog

Time is running ... In

(Featured in this space was a count-down timer to the moment that Barack Obama became President. ...and none too soon.)

FAT Tuesday and Wed. & Thurs. & et al

Watch CBS Videos Online

bears repeating...

Yaron reacts by posting the following image, displaying an IDF soldier protecting a baby carriage, while a Hamas fighter uses the baby as a shield:

duly noted

Borrowed from Boyd @

/Ambivalence

Urban Sketchers: Lunch Time @ McSorley's

Urban Sketchers: Lunch Time @ McSorley's

I was there 30 years ago and the place looks just the same.

Thank you Stephen Gardner <- go look at his stuff, there are more great sketches.

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Windows 7: Less Annoying

I read Seth Godin. Even if you are not in his 'business' you should read Seth Godin. Today in his posting Love (and annoying) he started out by saying this...

The goal is to create a product that people love. If people love it, they'll forgive a lot. They'll talk about it. They'll promote it. They'll come back. They'll be less price sensitive. They'll bring their friends. They'll work with you to make it better.

If you can't do that, though, perhaps you can make your service or product less annoying.

Microsoft's Vista immediately comes to mind. Vista, the Windows ME of the 21st century, failed (on so many levels) because Microsoft insisted on making it more annoying.

If the goal is to create a product that people love then Microsoft should very seriously consider allowing the user community to acquire Windows 7 the way it did with early versions of Windows 3.x.

Remember, if you are old like me, how liberating a graphical user interface (GUI) was compared to the cold and impersonal command line interface (CLI) DOS prompt, C:\>.

Remember how empowered we felt being able to simply point and click our way into personal computing? Be honest now, remember how much in love we were with Windows (and Microsoft) at the time. Microsoft would do well to remember how we almost literally fell over ourselves running out to purchase new PCs with the latest version of Windows.

Microsoft would do well to remember that If people love it, they'll forgive a lot. Our love affair with Windows allowed us to grudgingly overlook things like the dreaded BSOD.

Microsoft Windows XP BSOD

Perhaps if we could love Windows 7 we would be willing to overlook how completely Microsoft tried to force the likes of Vista on us. We might overlook how successive generations of Microsoft Windows have forced us to pay for very expensive hardware upgrades. They were very expensive because they offered little return on actual computing but were only necessary to support Microsoft's porcine programs.

Microsoft will gain the love of every computer user if they make Windows 7 available as a free very low cost upgrade. Imagine the GIANT public relations coup Microsoft would enjoy if licensed XP users were simply allowed to upgrade to Windows 7 the way we 'upgraded' from the DOS prompt to a new shiny GUI.

And speaking of falling all over ourselves ... Microsoft must realize that as we consumers lean toward small-form, even sub-compact, notebook [Netbook] computing platforms we won't accept forced hardware upgrades because of Operating System (OS) revisions. In order to maintain the love Microsoft will simply have to strive at being less annoying.

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