Tag Archives: listen

I Guess ET Won’t Be Phoning Home

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Someone I used to work with once inadvertently taught a very valuable lesson to a new Linux user who they were on the phone with. He told the user to run a command to remove a directory with some files in it located in their home folder. They were already in their home folder, so he asked them to run:

rm -rf folder_with_files

The customer ran the command with an asterisk thinking they were being clever and saving themselves time typing.

rm -rf part_of_folder_name *

They meant to run something a bit different.

rm -rf part_of_folder_name*

That space meant that they were actually listing two things to delete:

1. A folder that didn’t exist, because the whole folder name was not typed out.
2. Everything else.

Since they were in their home directory, this wiped out their whole home folder.

Let this be a warning to new Linux users.

Rm doesn’t have an undo.

And listen to what you’re being told when you call support.

Opening

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I can’t say I enjoy review time at work. This is only my second review at work (since this is year two) and I’ve already developed a distaste for it. I like the concept and understand the benefits. I am not saying they shouldn’t exist, but it is a painful process for everyone involved including me.

I’m not going to say it caused anything, but it triggered a lot of thoughts that have combined with what’s been going on with me as of late.

Here I am trying so hard to look at myself and my interactions with people. I am trying to have a real understanding of what I do versus what other people do in their interactions. I’m not talking about making people like me. I’m thinking more directly, how do I get what I want from my relationships with people? How do I get the relationships I want with people?

I need to work on some things.

As much as I’m open with my personality and confidence, I don’t actually open up to people. I don’t trust people. I put myself out there because I would rather die than be dishonest about who I am, but I have become so guarded over time from being hurt by people. It’s true that I have been making some new friends and rejuvenating old friendships lately, which is no small thing. But, when they’re talking, sometimes I realize how much they give to me freely and how much I hold back. I don’t trust myself to be upset, weak, or cry around my friends. I won’t admit I’m having a bad day, complain, tell them about a problem, or ask for help anymore apparently. I’m stubborn, independent, and do not want to burden anyone. I don’t want to focus on being negative. I want to have a good time with friends. I spent some time recently with a friend talking about some financial problems I’m having. I talked at length. That was weeks ago. I still feel guilty for putting that on them, for making that part of their night more negative, and I feel like maybe I hurt our relationship. Who wants to go out of their way to spend time with someone who just spent the last hour (or whatever) complaining about money?

Flip side, I listen to my friends problems and help them all of the time. I have no idea why I make that double standard for myself.

I should let people in and people help me. It could make us closer if it doesn’t push someone away.

I have to be willing to take that chance. Keeping at a distance from everyone may seem wonderfully safe, but it’s a large burden to carry on yourself.

I need to learn to take chances in my relationships with people. The worst thing is that people may drift away, but if I don’t let them in closer, they’ll do that anyways.

Child’s Chance to Choice

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A few of my bloggin’ buddies have been posting their “Code’s of Life” lately, namely one Rory Blyth and Tao Cowboy. It’s enough to make one want to join the philosophizing and reflecting party (woo!).

Moonglow Ultima 4Mostly my views have grown and changed as I’ve wandered through life. I’ve never been one for holding onto an idea once it’s proven not to work for me. One thing that’s remained a constant is importance placed on honesty. Being true to oneself and others to me is as big as the inhabitants of Moonglow in the world of Britannia (screen shot from Ultima IV).

Honesty might have been even more important to me growing up. Let’s face it, most adults are anything but honest with children. I’m not talking about Santa Clause, I’m talking about the lies designed to protect us. I resented that kind of dishonesty as much as the malicious kind. Whether or not we as adults want to admit it, the effect can be as, if not more, devastating than any truth told. Kids will find out the truth later when they grow into adulthood, or more likely, much sooner than you’d like. When this lie is told the truth can be found in an embarrassing, painful, or even dangerous manner. One of my first thoughts goes to my mom who had my older brother when she was fifteen. I know the people in her life thought they were protecting her by keeping her ignorant about the birds and the bees, but really what they did is deprive her of a choice.

People think children aren’t old enough to make choices, and perhaps no one is. However, in life we are forced to make choices that we are no prepared to. This happens all the time. I hope that if I have children I’ll do everything I can to give them the ammunition to make choices wisely when life forces them to. Above all, I hope they don’t have to make tough calls, but they will. We can’t be there every second to chose for them, and knowledge is power.

Victor and DeannaI hope this for my younger siblings, one who just had her last day of high school, the other who is in his preteen years. I know that I am a big influence in their lives and that they are listening to me and looking to me for influence, even when they are pretending or trying not to. We learn from our surroundings, especially the things we give credence to. I might just be another person, but I’m also a role model and example whether or not I want to be.

I believe in the power of honesty and I believe in the power of learning, and to me they are one in the same. If you’re smart enough to ask the question, you deserve honest input, even if (and especially) the answer isn’t certain. There I think is the key to personal growth and betterment in this life.

My younger of my siblings is eleven. People have described him as a smartass and too smart for his own good. It’s true. I remember being described that way when I was his age. I remember being eleven and all the things I knew and was dealing with that my parents didn’t know. It’s hard to look at him and think that he might have some of the same heavy issues in his own life. It’s hard to look at him and consider he might have even harder decisions to make than I did. I know he’ll learn things from other sources, popular culture and his peers. I know he might absorb all the wrong things if I don’t speak up and even more, listen. I know I can’t learn for him and he will have to make his own mistakes, but I hope they are harmless and few. I listen and when he asks, I try to give him the best, most honest answer I can give. I’m trying to give him a fighting chance to make the right decisions. Without real information about the world around him, how is he going to have chance?

Beyond that, I want to teach him the value of honesty with my own example. He will become his own person regardless. He’ll find his own life code and values. He’ll have his own obstacles and choices. Even if I don’t see it, I know he has them right now. Every day he’s forming new opinions, testing the waters, and becoming more independent. I’ll always be here to tell him truthfully what I think and I hope one day he will return the favor by doing the same for others well into adulthood.

As for my sister, who is just like me and just the opposite of me in so many ways, I’m proud of her. Sure, she doesn’t hold dear all of the same things that I do, and she’s made a million choices I would never have. All the same, she’s doing better than okay. She’s reached the official United States definition of adulthood: eighteen. She has her High School Diploma. She is attending Anna Maria college in the fall. She works. She has a ton of friends. She’s a great cook and musician. She’s made it. She’s is doing well. I know I can’t take credit for the person she’s become, but I still like to think that I did okay in my part in her upbringing. I was right to trust her to hear all I had to say and make all the tough choices she’s had to up to this point. Life is not easy, and making it this far doing well and no small accomplishment.

Doubly Singular

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Soul Blazer crab walking

This post’s image is brought to you by the Enix game Soul Blazer for the SNES. On one hand, this may be an introduction to a tutorial. On the other hand, it might be a pickup line.

I enjoy being single. The world is, in general, a much simpler and happy place when you’re dealing with a single point of view. It’s a bit harder to argue with yourself. I’m not much in the habit of betraying myself. And when I screw up, no one is there to tell me so or rub it in except me. I’m hard enough on myself, so it’s a bit of a relief to not have double the guilt.

I’ve seen enough people cringe when I go on like that. I know approximately what they’re thinking. “Wow. That’s a pretty jaded viewpoint. What about all the good stuff?”

I used to have good answers to this sort of cynicism. I used terms like “…when I find my soul mate…” as opposed to, “…if something close to this even exists…”. I used to believe that love could be enough to make any relationship work if you worked at it hard enough.

But, really, it doesn’t work that way. People suck. A person will expect you to work at the relationship while simultaneously looking over their shoulder for something better, making you feel like you’re doing something wrong, and not feeling even remotely obligated to meet you half way on anything.

The two ways of dealing with someone when they try to make you meet them half way on anything:

1. Argue.

2. Agree without even listening to what you’re agreeing to.

I prefer people that will argue over those who will ‘yup’ you. “Yes, honey” makes me want to impale peeps and marshmallow bunnies on knives while pretending they’re real. You at least can be sure the argumentative ones are being honest about what they think and feel with you. They trust you enough to expose their own opinions and feelings. Unfortunately, they also usually think their thoughts are automatically more qualified than anyone else’s. It’s not that they think they’re always right, it’s that you’re always at least more wrong than they are (if you are performing the great sacrilege of having a different point of view).

To these people, being wrong is a significant event that determines one’s mental capacity. Proving someone wrong and making them feel stupid for it go hand in hand. Nothing says “I love you.” more than, “You moron, you got that movie quote wrong.”

Even though I like being single, I will admit that finding that ideal other person would also be wonderful. It’s something that is always at least in the back of every single person’s mind: what is your ideal like? What are you going to look for differently next time (as if we don’t chose slight variations on the same type of people over and over)?

I’m thinking that next time I will try to find someone that has the capacity to both be very honest *and* very caring. I want to find someone that will feel like they can say anything to me, but would like that person to have the ability to say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” and “I don’t agree with you, but you make a valid point.” and mean it.

I could go on to say that the idea person would be a dichotomy between a lot of things. I am someone who has always been (somehow) extremely left brained and right brained at the same time. I also have the capacity to be both over logical and over emotional. If this doesn’t make any sense, get to know me better. If this sounds frightening, it can be, so you might want to poke me with a stick through my cage a few times before getting too close.

But what is with this useless exercise? It’s the ultimate self centered thought, to pretend there is going to be someone else out there who you will find in your lifetime that matches your wants and needs more perfectly than you even understand those wants and needs.

On top of that, I’m pretending I’ll actually chose things about the person the next time my mind and body betray me and do the love suicide march once again.

I have not planned it when it’s happened. I’ll not even be looking.

So, as I continue to actively not look for someone else, I also try not to go down this silly road wrought with self-indulgent romanticism. The pessimistic blather may not be much better, but it at least supports my independence. It’s better than being a desperate romantic any day.

Communication Technology

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So, people have a hard enough time with regular socialization skills. Now with all the tiers of communicating, it’s a wonder anyone can keep up. It’s not just technology to master, otherwise geeks would be super-pro at socialization.

First there were people communicating at social gatherings and work.

Then there was phone.

Now there is *deep breath* AIMPhoneMSNICQCellPhoneMySpaceEmailFacebookBlogRTSTextMessageForumMMORPG *another breath* -you get the idea. You figure this would ease communication. We’d be super in touch with everyone all the time. No. Because there is no way someone is going to call you to tell you something important if they can text you even if you disabled text messaging because you’re either dirt poor or got sick of getting texts of “hi :)” (or both). Even though you told them in person that you blocked texting, they forgot and they don’t like talking on the phone. They’d rather enjoy Olympic button pressing and staring at a post-it sized screen for 5x the time it would take to say what they needed to. They scoff and think that if you really cared to keep in touch with them, you would enable texting so that you’d get that one important text out of 500. And don’t dare ask them to email you, because that’s *totally* not the same thing.

I once had a boyfriend who argued with me on the phone until I downloaded an instant messaging service to talk to him. It doesn’t matter that we had cell phones, texting, and SKYPE (back when you could dial out for free). This was his most comfortable way of communicating, so I better adapt. On some level, I can understand. You can minimize the other person, don’t need to listen to their tone of voice, can play your RTS or MMORPG, have both hands to type unlike a cell phone, and they don’t know if you got up to get a bagel or pee. On the other hand, we were kind of trying to be emotionally intimate. One other advantage of online messaging is that I still have logs from these chats. That’s what I need… a record of how much I don’t stand up for myself. Hindsight is supposed to at least be softened by memory, and here I have a .txt file showing how pathetic I can be.

Sure, check your email, but make sure you have your FacebookMySpaceLinkedInRandomNetworkingThingies configured to let you know when someone sends you a message on one of these websites. But usually, you can’t read it in your email. I go into my email, see I have something on facebook, and in facebook go to my wall or my inbox… TWO separate methods of communication in ONE networking tool that tells you through email.

Woe onto you who have more than one email. I have two… one that I have had since… before it was cool. The other I got in college and has forums for jobs and places to live and alumni and dialogs on campus and stuff for sale and calls for art. It also has instant messaging built in too… so instant messaging services open and go into your email with yet another instant messaging service and texting on the cell phone in your pocket that can also ring… I’m sorry if I haven’t got around to checking my other email in awhile.

We’re not at the sad part yet. Want to know what the sad part is..? I’m part of a generation who is used to it. Sure, I set my boundaries. I’m on facebook. I’m not getting MySpace too. I’m not enabling texting for the pope- if you’re at your cell, call me!

But I’m used to it to the point where it is ingrained in me as a socializing solution to my communication shortcomings. That’s right, I sometimes look for even more alternate forms of indirect communication… Sure, I could turn around and say something to the funny and good looking guy in my IT class who I’ve thought was pretty cool since the first class (even if he does have a girlfriend but who cares it’d just be nice to communicate). Or, instead risking getting giddy and giggling like an idiot, I’d could go run, cmd, net send…

But the instructor set his boundaries. Thou shall not abuse net send or I shall disable it. Don’t make me do it.

And then people started writing batch files that sent net sends by the hundreds… and logged into other computers with remote desktop to say ‘it wasn’t me’… and flirted using poetic computer based metaphor (Oh, wait, that was just me… and him… as far as I know).

It’s ridiculous, and I realize it. I looked myself in the eye reflecting in the monitor and made a decision.

I asked for his cell number in the parking lot. *cheers* Score one for the communication revolution! At some point in the future, we will hang out and communicate outside of class- in person!

…now I just need to call it …and stop giggling at everything he says to me in person. Yes, even I- currently rated number three most confident on the compare people face book application of all my facebook friends who also have said application- can get shy. (see documentation above)

With all the additional ways to communicate and keep in touch with people, it’s true, we still don’t know how to communicate with other human beings. The opposite sex… oh, forget about that. This isn’t Star Trek you know. We don’t have the technology.

Follow up posts:
Communication Revolution: Quashed!
Wednesday Night