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Recently, as you may have read, I hurt someone’s feelings. Unlike other times when this kind of thing might happen and then get shrugged off, I had the distinct displeasure of reading all about it the next day – bringing my thoughtless behavior into sharp focus. I was horrified, and I felt that the only way to begin to make things right was to apologize, even though that would broadcast my mistake to the entire community that I had just spent several days networking with and trying to make a good impression on.

This experience really got me thinking deeply – first about the difference between blogging about something and just talking about something with your friends, then to the responsibilities of being kind in the way that you write about your experiences that involve others, then on to questioning the very nature of being critical as opposed to kind in our interactions with others, and finally to my own shortcomings as a human being. It’s been a rough personal ride, mostly accompanied by that heavy pit-of-the-stomach shame feeling, which is absolutely a wretched way to feel. And yet I feel that something good will come from it, namely what usually follows any period of pain and/or shame … personal growth. And then I thought that it just might be worth sharing some of these thoughts with whoever cares to listen.

The Difference between Blogging about Something and Just Talking about Something with Your Friends

How many times have we been critical with our friends? How many times do we come out of a movie theater or finish listening to a new CD and say things to each other like, “Wow – that was awful! What were those guys thinking? That totally sucked … what a waste of time!” Or something similar. The first comment of that nature is usually followed by some commiserating on the topic. But how does that translate into the blogging world? If you’re talking about a movie, does that hurt the feelings of the hugely famous directors and actors? If you’re talking about a panel you saw at SxSW, does that hurt the feelings of semi-famous designers/coders/business people? If you were talking about a friend in your social circle it would truly seem awful … at what point does it not seem awful? At what point is the circle wide enough?

Being Kind in the Way You Write About Your Experiences that Involve Others

After I read about how hurtful my words had been to a fellow designer, it threw into question so much of the way I had written about my experience here at SxSW. This is the first time I have ever written journalistically – writing in the moment about the moment as I “report” on experiences – and I was finding it fun, and exciting. I have always written with relative abandon, even while giving CSS tutorials and the like, and I think I got a little carried away with just saying whatever came to mind without considering it’s impact enough. I reread my critical posts with a new perspective, and I didn’t feel good about the way I had written certain things. I hesitated to change anything, though, partly out of some form of self-punishment, and partly out of some form of (possibly misguided) journalistic integrity – something about already putting something out there made me feel that it would be somehow dishonest to remove it. But I realized that, moving forward, I would like to make a commitment to writing about things in the same way that I would want things to be written about me or my work – with kindness and respect, even if there are critical things to say.

Questioning the Very Nature of Being Critical as Opposed to Kind in Our Interactions with Others

Next I started to turn from realizing it’s different to trash something with your friends than it is to do so publicly to questioning why I would even participate in “trashing” anything at all! So what if I thought a movie was truly quite bad – what is gained from expressing that simply to express it? I’m not a movie critic, I’m not analyzing the movie for a film class, I’m not talking with my friend who is a director who can learn from my insights about what made the movie bad in my view – I’m simply putting it down. And then, most likely, I’m enjoying the banter that follows with friends about how bad it was. Likely there is lots of laughing and a feeling of camaraderie involved. But have we really contributed positively to anything at all? In most cases, no.

So why do we do it? As cliché as it sounds, when I examined my own motives in these situations, the answer truly is that we do it to make ourselves feel better about who we are. It is so very easy to be critical. It is so easy to look at something like the Design Workflow panel at SxSW – a panel filled with designers who are so very much more accomplished than I am, people who have written books, won awards, written innumerable quality blog posts and articles – and to be dismissive of them because the discussion wasn’t what I expected. It is so easy to commiserate with people and complain. Why? Is the truth that I wish I were that accomplished? That I wish I were on a panel filled with respected designers whose thoughts on things were valued by most of our entire community? That I wish I had written books and pioneered design trends? Yes. That is the truth. And when I find things to say about them to put them down, the further truth is that by doing so I’m finding a way to make myself feel a little better about not being one of them. It’s a painful thing to admit.

Finally, Some Thoughts About My Own Shortcomings as a Human Being

Like most of us, I am imperfect. Also like most of us, I do try to look within and recognize imperfections and work diligently towards improvement. When I was young I was a fairly critical person. I was the type of person that might turn to my friend and point out someone’s flaws. By the time I reached early adulthood I had recognized this, realized that it was not how I wanted to be (and that it actually stemmed from my own self-doubt), and made a firm commitment to work towards being different. It wasn’t easy, but over time I changed.

Before this experience I believed that I was a very kind person. I have a tendency to be way too hard on myself so before I say that now I know that isn’t true, I will instead say that I still believe it to be true, but that sometimes I fail my higher self and act in unkind ways.

What Can I Take Away From All This?

I am learning that there is a new level of kindness that I have to aspire to – one that takes kindness into account in every type of interaction and communication. Forms of unkindness (specifically being judgmental and critical of things that seem remote) that seemed acceptable just a few days ago I now view as unacceptable behavior for me. It may seem corny, but I really strive, and fail a lot but strive nonetheless, to make the world a little bit of a better place through all the actions that I take. The fact that I failed that goal so miserably and then had to take ownership of that failure so publicly has really helped me to re-evaluate how well I am fulfilling that goal, and to consciously make adjustments to be more successful at being uplifting.

I will leave my critical posts up as a reminder to myself of what I don’t want to be, and as an incentive to create enough positive energy to eventually drown them out.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 11:07 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.