Hi Lesley, thanks for your comment. You're raising some interesting points. I'll reply below.
On Thu, 28 Aug 2014 10:53:41 +0100 'lesleyb' <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 12:12:16PM +0300, Shlomi Fish wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > like the title mentions this a short essay with a two-fold message. It is > > posted only to [email protected] (for now) and is about criticism. > > > > 1. Handling criticism: > > ---------------------- > > > > People like to criticise other people. Whatever you'll do some people will > > be unhappy and criticise you: see > > People don't have to be unhappy with someone to be critical of them. > The two don't automatically go together. Yes, you are right. >In fact I think it's somewhat > immature to be critical of someone simply because they've upset you. > Yes you are right. Nevertheless, I sometimes get angry at my parents for doing things, or speak with an angry tone that my mother notices. My father recently attended a talk on this con which we both attended this year - https://nineworlds.co.uk/ - which concluded by indicating that when a persons curses, the contents of his cure (= the meaning of the words) is also important. And since then I noticed that what I say is often truthful and still gets ignored. > Code reviews may be a case in point. No one needs to be unhappy with someone > else to adhere to a code style or point out an unintended or unwanted > side-effect in code. But being critical is necessary in a code review. True. Well, if someone wrote crappy code which you reviewed, you are unhappy with some aspects of him. Like I note in http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Buffy/A-Few-Good-Slayers/ongoing-text.html#faith-s-childhood , it is the individual qualities and capabilities of a person, or a group that makes them who they are, and you should be proud and exploit all of them, because they all make you awesome. If you're old enough, you probably may remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Hilton who exploited the fact that she was the granddaughter of the current owner of Hilton Hotels, and using her own resourcefulness and while making use of some recent trends in entertainment and communication, became the most talked about woman in the world (or what I called the "alpha female"). So she was lucky and born advantageous... all the power to her! While not all people were born that way, it does not mean that: 1. People who were not born so advantegeous cannot achieve great deeds (See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopi_Goldberg ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds ; and most recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Lawrence ). To quote Lady Gaga, "We were all born superstars": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy5fm4gxq-s . 2. People who were born advantageous are necessarily going to fare better than people who are less advantageous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain was a superb author and died very rich, but he has no living descendants, because they all died. Moreover, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne 's descendants (who I believe are still alive, mostly healthy, and well-off) maintain a relatively low profile (for better or for worse) and are not the centre of attention. > > But you're right some people like to criticise others - needlessly in my view. > That energy spent criticising others around them could perhaps be put to > better use. Like I said - I welcome criticisms in hope they will hit the mark and allow me to improve. Like the great Klingon warriors (crazy I know, but my personal insanity makes me a more interesting person) say after admitting they were wrong, "Congratulations! You killed me! What a good day it was to die!" (And don't ask me how to say it in Klingon.) > I see an overly critical person as having their own set of mental > health problems they really need to address to learn not to reflect them out > onto other people; they need to be managed, tolerated and one has to > minimise/reduce the damage they can cause a team. As someone who suffered from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder , and from a few https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania s, and have known people with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoaffective_disorder - let me tell you: personality quirks, weird opinions, proclaiming various beliefs, or even annoying tendencies are not necessarily equivalent to bad mental health. You can be a quirky or annoying person while still having a perfectly sound mind and body. Is Richard Stallman mentally ill? Is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond ? Someone on IRC told me that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Portman is crazy, and she's held in incredibly high esteem (and is far more "normal" than a large number of the previous celebrities in Hollywood) . You can improve yourself without the need to be accused of being mentally unsound. And you are allowed to ask, or even pay, for help or even for advice[1], as long as you take full responsibility for the outcome of your final decisions. [1] - Many people earn a lot of money by being consultants or experts, who get hired to share their experiences and insights on what needs to be done. I recall us hiring some of those back in my first workplace. Best regards, Shlomi Fish -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Rethinking CPAN - http://shlom.in/rethinking-cpan Knuth is not God! It took him two days to build the Roman Empire. — http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/facts/Knuth/ Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] http://learn.perl.org/
