Work, bored, etc.

OMG I miss mistful already and she left two days ago.

So I'm at my freelance job and no one is giving me work and I just ate lunch and there is this big "thing" I'm trying not to think about and my workload from now until the end of the term is massive but do-able. I hate swanning in here and asking for stuff because it ain't that kind of LJ, but I'm sort of bored and not sure what semi-controversial thing I should post about just so I can have a lot of stuff to reply to. So hey, poll!

[Poll #730064]

New blog rule?

This is probably not controversial.

I've noticed an axiom at work. When one makes a blanket post about some sort of behavior or speech that is annoying, the people that you aren't targeting with your statement are the ones who comment or post themselves worrying that you meant them, and the ones that you DID mean assume that you didn't mean them. Therefore, pretty much nothing gets accomplished.

What made me think of this most recently were all the posts on LJ and various blogs about writing. It seemed to this reader that many of them were meant to keep anyone who might think that writing was easy, or not requiring of hard work or talent or both, from further "laboring" under that delusion. But frequently they seemed to say, "Only if you are deeply and importantly talented and willing to sacrifice everything else in your life for your Art should you ever put pen to paper. Otherwise do us all a favor and get a job at the mall." But the trouble here is, there are of course plenty of people who are bad writers, think they are good writers, and assume that they are "deeply and importantly talented." Meanwhile those who may well be rather talented will think, "Gee, I didn't win a writing contest when I was four so I must not be deeply and importantly talented" and get discouraged. Just to drive that nail in the coffin Garrison Keillor got into the game by shouting about writers who whine about writing, when those writers weren't whining, but trying to say that yes, writing is an actual job requiring actual work. And THAT led to pegkerr wondering if she whines too much (far from it, Peg) and I'm sure she wasn't the only one with that reaction.

Friends, there are no winners here. Those who are tuned in to who they are and the little social cues around them, respond to such general appeals even though they don't apply to them PRECISELY because they are tuned in. Those who are tuned into their own personal frequency will never recognize themselves in a general appeal PRECISELY because they aren't tuned in! I've done it and I've watched it done and I'm telling you that it doesn't work.

Josh says there's no name for this little law because blogging is too new but I think we should try to find one and then spread it around. Are you with me? Do you see what I see?