Tag: Ask Roger Anything

Avoiding conflict

I was always a GOOD kid. I had anger, but it was quite suppressed growing up.

Dan Van Riper, the Albany Weblog guy, first wrote to Ask Roger Anything:
Roger, I… I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything to ask. I really want to but… I can’t. Why not?

Because my life’s an open book? Because you’re having dental work done?

But then he came back and asked:
Wait, I just thought of a question. It’s actually been in the back of my head for some time. You’ve said more than once that you don’t like conflict between people, that when it happens you tend to shy away from it. I know several people who are like that. My question is, why? Do you have any idea where that comes from? Or is that too personal?

To answer the last, easiest, question, no, it’s not too personal.

I suppose I need to define the terms. My daughter’s favorite Beatles song is “We Can Work It Out,” which features the line: “Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.”

Watching the Sunday morning news shows, or Bill O’Reilly, or the like, I realize I would not do very well. People are rapidly throwing around facts and pseudo-facts, often yelling over each other. It would create in me too much agita to think clearly. Later, I’d have some treppenwitz moments, thinking of what I SHOULD have said.

I’ll state my positions – say on this blog – and I’m sure there are people who like them, and people who don’t, and that’s fine. People – you or others – will have a reasonable response. Maybe we’ll change each other’s minds or maybe we won’t, but it’s OK because it seems to be done with a level of mutual respect.

Whereas on the Times Union blogs, or national newspaper websites, the conflict tends to escalate, with one side trying to out-shout the other. No one will be convinced of the position of the other, so what’s the point, really? I’ve posted some things on the TU site, where I made my initial observation, then others blithely go off in directions I hadn’t intended. I let them, but after a while, I get bored with it all. It seems futile.

Then there’s the uncertainty thing, the sign of a good humanities student. I certainly don’t pretend that I know all the answers – others may think so, but it’s not true – and I put forth the possibility, in SOME topics, that I could be at least partially mistaken. I don’t have the need to badger others about those things.

I’m an old political science major, but political arguing I find demoralizing. Often, “victory” is seen as stopping government, or a corporate entity under its jurisdiction, from doing what it ought not to have been doing in the first place.

None of this, though, is the REAL answer. The REAL answer is how I was raised. My mother was great with the aphorisms such as “You get more bees with honey than vinegar.” My father’s message is that the angry young black man thing doesn’t work well in a primarily white society.

I was always a GOOD kid. I had anger, but it was quite suppressed growing up. I expelled a LOT of it in my twenties, no small portion of it at my rather controlling father. And once I let it go, a lot of it was just gone. I just don’t get as angry as I used to; sad, frustrated, even occasionally in despair about the world The Daughter is going to inherit – pollution, global warming creating ecological catastrophes, economic and cultural inequality, to name a few. But anger just doesn’t work for me, most of the time.

In fact, anger makes me feel out of control. It’s been known to give me a raging headache. I’ve been told I look like a crazy person (crazier person?).

Interestingly, then, it means that the rate times I REALLY get angry, it’s usually more effective. If I’m a known hothead, then its effectiveness is compromised.

Facebook and the shutdown

If no one’s is talking about the shutdown in YOUR Facebook circle, maybe it’s because it’s SO toxic.

In the Ask Roger Anything tradition, New York Erratic recently wondered:

Why do you think almost no one is discussing the shutdown and debt on Facebook? Usually, when something even vaguely political happens (e.g. an election, a school shooting, the Supreme Court decided something that made it to the national news), people are posting like crazy. So why virtually nothing?

OK, two contradictory answers about the shutdown:

1) It is not MY experience on Facebook that people aren’t talking about the shutdown. I see stuff every single day.

Here’s a couple on my timeline, from the last 36 hours, none from me:
“I think it’s time to start a revolution, friends. It only takes one! Imagine if one percent of Americans marched on Washington DC and demanded a new government. We could change the world!”

“REMOVE THE RADICALS IN DC ASAP. Ruining this country.”

“Gov. Andrew Cuomo announces that the state will pay the roughly $61,000 a day to reopen the Statue of Liberty. On the one hand, it’s a nice thing to do (and it no doubt helps tourism), on the other, these little tweaks to take the sting out of the shutdown just take the heat off the House of Representatives. ‘Hey, the parks and monuments are open, so what’s the big deal with the shutdown, right? Maybe those tea party folks are right that we don’t need the gubmint.'”

Plus LOTS of links to articles about the causes of the shutdown, like this one. People I know on FB are ticked off that “the Republican shutdown has now cost American taxpayers more than $3.3 billion and continues to sap our economy every day the government’s doors are closed.” I mean the shutdown doesn’t even save money!

Also, several data users are pointing out alternative sources for information, now that some of the core tools are not currently available.

In other words, NYE, I haven’t sensed that no one on Facebook is talking about the shutdown.

And, BTW, I totally disagree with the person on your FB timeline who wrote: “I think the main reason is that the ‘shutdown’ is not directly messing up anybody’s day.” I know people who have been furloughed. I AM one of those people without some resources I’m used to. People who plan their vacations to a national park all year and find a padlock on the doors aren’t inconvenienced?

2) If, in fact, no one’s is talking about the shutdown in YOUR Facebook circle, maybe it’s because it’s SO toxic. A SCOTUS ruling is announced, an election happens, and though the events have consequences, often long-term, they may not be immediately apparent. Whereas every day, we are reminded of the range of services not being provided by our government: sick people not in clinical trials, accidents and disease outbreaks not investigated, real life-and-death stuff.

We’ve become aware at a level not previously known that our government isn’t working, or at least is not working for the citizenry. When things like that happen, some people yell and holler, but others just want to cry in dismay. It’s what I linked to yesterday about us giving up, which is what some of them want; a discouraged citizenry that has surrendered, leaving THEM even more in control.

3) Re: the debt limit: When individual people weren’t paying their mortgages four or five years ago, it was painted by some as personal irresponsibility, and terms such as “moral hazard” were thrown around. THOSE people – J’accuse!

But the debt ceiling is such an amorphous concept, it’s difficult to wrap one’s mind around it. Many people believe/hope/pray that it won’t come. We’ve been threatened with it before, and we expect that, because the political fallout has been so fierce, they’ll fix it, maybe as early as tomorrow.

But I also subscribe to the “I’m used to it” theory. Remember when the price of gas first broke the $3 barrier and there was great gnashing of teeth? Likewise, when it went over $4. So now, with gas prices generally down, but still, over $3 for a very long time, it’s just not the issue it was. We get used to the “new normal” and shrug.

The amazing restorative powers of Ask Roger Anything

The great thing about Ask Roger Anything is that, taken as directed, it’s safe and effective in treating any ailments.

 

I don’t like to take lots of medicines. I figure if I end up taking too many of them for too long, it will minimize its effectiveness over time, making it a waste of time and money.

Oddly, the medicine that has not lost its efficacy is Ask Roger Anything, in which you, the blog reader, ask me, the blogger, anything, and I mean ANYTHING.

“What do you name the pink elephants in your living room?” That sort of stuff. AND I MUST ANSWER; that doesn’t mean I won’t try a little obfuscation, if necessary.

The great thing about Ask Roger Anything is that taken as directed, it’s safe and effective in treating any ailments. And the only known side effects are prolonged philosophying and intensive pondering. Leave your questions in the comment section or send them on Facebook or Twitter (ersie) or e-mail (RogerOGreen AT Gmail DOT com).

ARA: Influences and historical conversations

We’ll have Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie.

Dear Lisa says Okay, I’ll play:
Who (living or dead) has had the most influence on your life?

I’d have to say my father. He turned me on to music, which was always in the house. He had a thing for social justice. His moodiness was something I tried to avoid in myself, not always successfully. He could be an unfocused dreamer, something I can be guilty of as well.

If you could go back in time and have a conversation with someone, who would it be? My apologies if you’ve already answered these questions before!

Well, I have, so I’ve decided to change it. I want a conversation with FOUR people, together, in the summer of 1910. We’ll have Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), who would be 21, and Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1947), who would turn 41 in the fall, and Thomas Edison (1847-1931), who would be 63, and Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), who would turn 75 in the fall.

I’d be interested to see what the other three would have to say to young Adolf: Gandhi about non-violence, Edison about creativity, Carnegie about going from being a robber baron to a philanthropist who built libraries.
***
Tom the Mayor asked:

Have you ever lost your temper with your wife? Or your daughter?

My wife and I almost never fight. We disagree, but not all that often. The last time I remember getting REALLY angry with her, and it was several years ago, was when she was in a conversation in our house with someone else. I piped in with a point, and she said, to the other person, that I had gotten said point from some specific Sunday morning talk show. After the guest left, about a half-hour later, I exploded that I don’t parrot what I see on a given talk show but take in from a variety of sources and develop my viewpoints. THAT ticked me off.

The Daughter is very sensitive; just ask her. When she was younger, just being disappointed with something she did was enough to launch her into tears. Later, when I had to prod her into doing something – doing her homework, cleaning her room – I would use my calmest firm voice, yet she’d start crying, adding “You KNOW I’m sensitive!” which actually made me laugh inside.

So, I’d say I would get agitated with her sometimes, at which point, I will take a timeout from her. To be fair to me, my wife has experienced similar things; sometimes, SHE’S the “bad” parent. Now when The Daughter writes about it, she may have a different take, but that will be HER blog.
***
A question in my spam folder:

What do you consider the best security defend agency in the country? thanks!

A well-informed populace.

ARA: Getting serious about blogging

You should comment on other people’s blogs. Find some bloggers who write about things you’re interested in, preferably ones with a few, or a couple dozen comments, rather than a several hundred.

I get this IM after I went to bed a few nights ago from a friend of mine: As I’m thinking of it… at some time I would like to get your thoughts about becoming serious with my blogging. I haven’t put much out there in terms of attracting a following and now it’s something I want to consider at the very least.

My stock answer is, “How the heck do I know?”

That said, the way to become serious about blogging is to actually do it. I don’t mean you have to write something every day – only a crazy person, or someone with far more time on his hands than you do, would consider THAT. Two or three times a week, regularly and consistently, though, would be nice.

Write about what you think, you feel. Let your voice come through. Most people can tell when you’re lying. And by this, I don’t mean you have to give up any semblance of privacy. Good fiction tells greater truths, sometimes, than non-fiction.

Say something. I read on some local social media maven’s Facebook page – you WOULD know the name: “Many of my favorite FB users seem to be the ones getting off the site/closing their accounts.” One of the responses was interesting: “I think FB has changed a lot over the past two years. You have too many people posting 30 times a day every little thing they’re doing. And others that never talk, but you know they’re stalking everyone’s posts. It’s just not the same.”

That response addresses two or three points I want to make. You CAN blog too often. My need to limit myself to once a day was for MY sake, but I imagine the readers appreciate it too.

You should comment on other people’s blogs. Find some bloggers who write about things you’re interested in, preferably ones with a few, or a couple of dozen comments, rather than several hundred. What you are aiming to do is create relationships.

Even before I started blogging, and I was reading my friend Fred Hembeck’s now all-but-defunct blog, I would go to his links of interesting comic book artists, writers, fans. And I would read their stuff. Some of it interested me, some didn’t. For the former, I would read the comments, and then occasionally say something myself. Then when someone was making great points on a regular basis, I might check out HIS/HER blog. This is how I got to “know” people in Buffalo and England and New Zealand who I’ve never met. If you want to be intentional about it – and I wasn’t – think of it as a form of networking.

When you comment and say pithy things, those folks are going to want to know, “Who IS this clever person?” Some of them will follow you back to your blog.

You can, of course, ask your blogging friends to plug your blog, but (see the early paragraphs), be sure you have a blog worth plugging. Fred Hembeck mentioned me at least a half dozen times in my first year of blogging, and I KNOW it generated traffic for me.

One other thing: you tend to write very lengthy pieces on Facebook, some of which are thoughts in process and therefore belong on FB. But when you’re ready to make a statement, put it in the blog. People are more likely to go back to the blog than FB. I got a comment this month about my late friend Raoul Vezina, based on a post I wrote in November 2008. A blog is better for your body of work.

Now you should PROMOTE your blog posts on Twitter and Facebook, writing enough, especially in the latter, that would compel them to read the whole thing. There are services that will let you post one place and it will show up in several other locales. Networked Blogs is one. TweetDeck USED to do that but isn’t supporting FB anymore.

I dislike reading long stuff on FB. Maybe it’s my aging eyes or ADHD, but if it goes on too long in that tiny font, I bail.

Of course, you can read some books, or join a group, and I’m not opposed to that. I’ve never read a book on blogging, and most of the blogging groups, usually involving writing every day for a given month, I’d forget to actually report that I’d written.

If you want more info, you know where to find me.

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