A festering frustration...
10:38 AM 10/23/2011
Just a quick note to Tony Baldwin (developer of Xpostulate) - please consider adding a number of key combinations for things like inserting time stamps and other menu items if you haven't already. When I'm writing the less I have to use the mouse the better. Also I know it'll be troublesome because it'll diverge the sources but I again humbly ask you to consider adding spell check.
Continuing...
There's a ton of things right now that are just frustrating the hell out of me. Some I can post here but some I won't simply because they involve highly personal interactions that need to be handled in meatspace.
First I'm getting awfully tired of people not looking at the whole picture. I have on my plate right now tons of things that would just evaporate as problems if people looked at the full picture.
Second I've worked my ass off in one way or another and I'm damn sick of not getting ahead. A good portion of that is bad decisions on my own part but everything from greedly employers to clueless managers to an impotent but greedly government makes this whole process much much more difficult than it has to be.
In the past if you worked hard and saved your pennies you could easily get a house, live there for however long you wanted to live there, and then move to another house. Or not. The options while perhaps a bit limited were very very stable. Now...it feels like unless you're a person who produces a stellar amount of output you're just spinning your wheels. An example is the fact that we will likely be living in this house for the rest of our lives. We likely won't have a chance to move to a place to retire to, we won't likely be able to build our own house, we likely won't have any other choices. (This is all provided the economy doesn't cause us to lose our house altogether.)
Third I don't want to have to teach my daughter to fight in a revolution. I really don't want to have to do that. I might have to but I really really want to avoid it if possible. (Note: I don't mean not to fight for what she deserves but to fight in an actual revolution.) We're one hard famine away from a torches and pitchforks revolution in this country. I mean that. One...famine...away. If that happens my daughter will have to learn how to fight physically for her rights.
Unfortunately when you fight in those situations something changes in you. You become harder. You lose something in the process. The best way I can express it is you lose innocence but gain freedom. And while sometimes that exchange is worthwhile sometimes the cost is too high. I don't want to have my daughter have to pay that cost.
Fourth I'm tired of people using stress as an excuse to be a bitch or an asshole. With the exception of the last couple of months I haven't worked steadily since 2009. Before that I had a high stress I/T Manager position for a decade. I've been in high stress situations on and off for the last twenty years.
And with the exception of a few slips I do may damndest NOT to be an asshole. I expect others to do the same. But I don't know if I'm just sensitive to it or I'm seeing those tiny isolated moments in time where people just snap but it seems more and more that the people around me are increasingly rude. I don't know maybe it's just me getting old and disconnecting from the current generation. But frankly I don't think so. Regardless without fail the excuse when I call these people out is "I'm sorry. I'm a little stressed.". Well so am I and I don't act like that. And I don't consider myself really all that special. (Am I? I don't feel special?)
Fifth why the hell must we constantly go faster as a society? The faster we go the better our reaction time has to be as a society and as individuals. There's a point at which we will miss the turn on that road and slam into a big tree. Maybe that's what's happening now. And worse yet those that try and slow down their lives and cherish the time they have are often seen as "backward" or "luddite" or "retarded". Taking our time we produce things of quality and put ouselves on a path that leads us to retire on our own spaces among the stars. Too fast, too sloppy, leads us to the dust of the ages.
Which leads me to my final thing for now - why don't we appreciate things of quality any more? Obviously part of this is economic in that nobody has the money to pay for quality things any more but I think that is only part of the problem. It relates in some ways to my previous point - we don't want to wait. We want that instant gratification. So between those two it makes it a little tough to be both a producer of quality things and a consumer of them. But here's my thought - and it's quite cliche' - if you build it they will come. If we want those quality things to be available to us in quantity we need to focus on giving people the ability to do so. We should be funding the heck out of artisans and artists and mad scientists and a whole host of other people. Given the way to make those quality things and enjoy making them we need to make it easy to support their lives doing what they love. Be they writers of words, painters of scenes, or makers of things they need to be provided for if we want quality things.
*sigh* I think I've ranted enough for one day. I'll try and get back to this every day as I can. I've got a lot of things to do and I've got a late start today after getting out of the house last night to play Rock Band until late in the morning. (I really needed to get out of the house.) Regardless I hope everybody is doing fine out there and hope that the future holds good things for you. :-)
Cross-posted from Dreamwidth ( http://nimitzbrood.dreamwidth.org/245563.html ) but feel free to comment here as well.
Just a quick note to Tony Baldwin (developer of Xpostulate) - please consider adding a number of key combinations for things like inserting time stamps and other menu items if you haven't already. When I'm writing the less I have to use the mouse the better. Also I know it'll be troublesome because it'll diverge the sources but I again humbly ask you to consider adding spell check.
Continuing...
There's a ton of things right now that are just frustrating the hell out of me. Some I can post here but some I won't simply because they involve highly personal interactions that need to be handled in meatspace.
First I'm getting awfully tired of people not looking at the whole picture. I have on my plate right now tons of things that would just evaporate as problems if people looked at the full picture.
Second I've worked my ass off in one way or another and I'm damn sick of not getting ahead. A good portion of that is bad decisions on my own part but everything from greedly employers to clueless managers to an impotent but greedly government makes this whole process much much more difficult than it has to be.
In the past if you worked hard and saved your pennies you could easily get a house, live there for however long you wanted to live there, and then move to another house. Or not. The options while perhaps a bit limited were very very stable. Now...it feels like unless you're a person who produces a stellar amount of output you're just spinning your wheels. An example is the fact that we will likely be living in this house for the rest of our lives. We likely won't have a chance to move to a place to retire to, we won't likely be able to build our own house, we likely won't have any other choices. (This is all provided the economy doesn't cause us to lose our house altogether.)
Third I don't want to have to teach my daughter to fight in a revolution. I really don't want to have to do that. I might have to but I really really want to avoid it if possible. (Note: I don't mean not to fight for what she deserves but to fight in an actual revolution.) We're one hard famine away from a torches and pitchforks revolution in this country. I mean that. One...famine...away. If that happens my daughter will have to learn how to fight physically for her rights.
Unfortunately when you fight in those situations something changes in you. You become harder. You lose something in the process. The best way I can express it is you lose innocence but gain freedom. And while sometimes that exchange is worthwhile sometimes the cost is too high. I don't want to have my daughter have to pay that cost.
Fourth I'm tired of people using stress as an excuse to be a bitch or an asshole. With the exception of the last couple of months I haven't worked steadily since 2009. Before that I had a high stress I/T Manager position for a decade. I've been in high stress situations on and off for the last twenty years.
And with the exception of a few slips I do may damndest NOT to be an asshole. I expect others to do the same. But I don't know if I'm just sensitive to it or I'm seeing those tiny isolated moments in time where people just snap but it seems more and more that the people around me are increasingly rude. I don't know maybe it's just me getting old and disconnecting from the current generation. But frankly I don't think so. Regardless without fail the excuse when I call these people out is "I'm sorry. I'm a little stressed.". Well so am I and I don't act like that. And I don't consider myself really all that special. (Am I? I don't feel special?)
Fifth why the hell must we constantly go faster as a society? The faster we go the better our reaction time has to be as a society and as individuals. There's a point at which we will miss the turn on that road and slam into a big tree. Maybe that's what's happening now. And worse yet those that try and slow down their lives and cherish the time they have are often seen as "backward" or "luddite" or "retarded". Taking our time we produce things of quality and put ouselves on a path that leads us to retire on our own spaces among the stars. Too fast, too sloppy, leads us to the dust of the ages.
Which leads me to my final thing for now - why don't we appreciate things of quality any more? Obviously part of this is economic in that nobody has the money to pay for quality things any more but I think that is only part of the problem. It relates in some ways to my previous point - we don't want to wait. We want that instant gratification. So between those two it makes it a little tough to be both a producer of quality things and a consumer of them. But here's my thought - and it's quite cliche' - if you build it they will come. If we want those quality things to be available to us in quantity we need to focus on giving people the ability to do so. We should be funding the heck out of artisans and artists and mad scientists and a whole host of other people. Given the way to make those quality things and enjoy making them we need to make it easy to support their lives doing what they love. Be they writers of words, painters of scenes, or makers of things they need to be provided for if we want quality things.
*sigh* I think I've ranted enough for one day. I'll try and get back to this every day as I can. I've got a lot of things to do and I've got a late start today after getting out of the house last night to play Rock Band until late in the morning. (I really needed to get out of the house.) Regardless I hope everybody is doing fine out there and hope that the future holds good things for you. :-)
Cross-posted from Dreamwidth ( http://nimitzbrood.dreamwidth.org/245563.html ) but feel free to comment here as well.