avevale_intelligencer: (Default)
avevale_intelligencer ([personal profile] avevale_intelligencer) wrote2005-08-24 07:16 am

I really should know better by now

I don't know why I keep doing it. I relax, I think I'm among friends, I tentatively bring out an idea that's close to my heart and I watch someone jumping up and down on the tiny shining thing because they choose to believe I've said something quite different. I don't think "Wouldn't it be nice if we could change our attitudes to the way we think about work and creativity" is quite the same as "Creative people should be let off work and everyone else should support them"; but I daresay I read old books of logic. Anyway, I don't suppose it would have cost me so much sleep if I wasn't still raw over the other thing, but as it is I don't even have the energy to be offended over what kind of person they obviously think I am.

Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

[identity profile] pbristow.livejournal.com 2005-08-24 10:00 am (UTC)(link)
If it helps for future reference: I think people missed the core idea and latched onto your expression of some of the implications. Introducing it with the same "owes you a living" meme that spawned it backfired. People have their own reactions to that line, and were triggered by that, rather than grokking core idea of shifting from an "owing" mentality to an "able to give" mentality.

Plus, some people automatically start thinking in terms of systems of government, rather than in terms of the individual application of a personal philosphy. It's the latter approach that enables the "giving" culture to get strated and grow, but in the meantime the former approach has to coexist with it to handle all the people who haven't switched over yet (and the many who never will).