First drawing of the new year
Jan. 2nd, 2004 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avramYesterday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akawil, ladymondegreen, and I celebrated the new year with a trip out to the Indian neighborhood near Journal Square for some vegetarian dosa and curry. They had Indian shows running on the satellite TV, mostly with lots of singing and dancing, though we came in towards the end of a low-end comedy/action movie (or TV show). I understand most Indian movies are musicals; I wonder what Hollywood action movies would be like now if directors had been inspired by Bollywood instead of Hong Kong. All singing dancing Matrix!
Today there was some confusion over where Games-Club-in-Exile would be held, so I wound up just staying home. (I’d missed the previous two GCs, but got in a bit of gaming at the party on Wednesday, so I wasn’t jonesing too hard.) I hung out at Ground for a while and finished inking this drawing I’d started after dinner last night:
![[ dancing girl ]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/22b262ff3e34/221157-255073/www.grumer.org/lj_images/20040102-dancer.gif)
Speaking of the confusion, there’s a dynamic in online communication that some people seem not to have grasped. Here’s a thing I’ve learned: It often happens, in online fora, that that one person or group will be speaking in favor of some thing, while another person or group will be advocating a conflicting thing. Often, passions will become engaged to some extent, and there will be the appearance of voices raised. When this occurs, if you are a person with no particular attachment to the issue under discussion, it is likely that you will be tempted to chime in with a message along the lines of “Both sides just stop arguing, because the thing you’re arguing about isn’t important.” (There will most likely be a subtext here of “I am superior to both sides, because I lack an attachment to this unimportant thing.”)
This is a temptation that should be resisted. Why? Because the most likely outcome is that the emotions engaged in the argument will be turned against you, and both sides will start flaming you, as a sideline to the original argument which will continue.
A significantly less likely outcome is that both sides will just ignore you and keep on arguing.
What you would probably be hoping for, in posting the comment I’ve described, is that both sides will smack their hands to their foreheads, exclaim “Oh, how foolish we have been to waste precious lifespan on so trivial a matter,” and end the argument. This will not happen. It is possible that you might insert your comment at just the point that the argument is running out of steam; it will thus appear that you have ended it with your comment, but do not be fooled — if such an argument dies, it would have died anyway. I have seen cases where an already-dead argument was resurrected by such a comment.
akawil, ladymondegreen, and I celebrated the new year with a trip out to the Indian neighborhood near Journal Square for some vegetarian dosa and curry. They had Indian shows running on the satellite TV, mostly with lots of singing and dancing, though we came in towards the end of a low-end comedy/action movie (or TV show). I understand most Indian movies are musicals; I wonder what Hollywood action movies would be like now if directors had been inspired by Bollywood instead of Hong Kong. All singing dancing Matrix! Today there was some confusion over where Games-Club-in-Exile would be held, so I wound up just staying home. (I’d missed the previous two GCs, but got in a bit of gaming at the party on Wednesday, so I wasn’t jonesing too hard.) I hung out at Ground for a while and finished inking this drawing I’d started after dinner last night:
Speaking of the confusion, there’s a dynamic in online communication that some people seem not to have grasped. Here’s a thing I’ve learned: It often happens, in online fora, that that one person or group will be speaking in favor of some thing, while another person or group will be advocating a conflicting thing. Often, passions will become engaged to some extent, and there will be the appearance of voices raised. When this occurs, if you are a person with no particular attachment to the issue under discussion, it is likely that you will be tempted to chime in with a message along the lines of “Both sides just stop arguing, because the thing you’re arguing about isn’t important.” (There will most likely be a subtext here of “I am superior to both sides, because I lack an attachment to this unimportant thing.”)
This is a temptation that should be resisted. Why? Because the most likely outcome is that the emotions engaged in the argument will be turned against you, and both sides will start flaming you, as a sideline to the original argument which will continue.
A significantly less likely outcome is that both sides will just ignore you and keep on arguing.
What you would probably be hoping for, in posting the comment I’ve described, is that both sides will smack their hands to their foreheads, exclaim “Oh, how foolish we have been to waste precious lifespan on so trivial a matter,” and end the argument. This will not happen. It is possible that you might insert your comment at just the point that the argument is running out of steam; it will thus appear that you have ended it with your comment, but do not be fooled — if such an argument dies, it would have died anyway. I have seen cases where an already-dead argument was resurrected by such a comment.