A personal failing of mine involves questions, or more accurately the asking of questions. What makes this so crazy is that I’m curious. I like learning new things, and in certain situations, I’ll ask one question after another. But I’m also big on figuring things out for myself. So sometimes I’ll wander around a store looking for something or spend hours online trying to figure out how to do something new because I do not want to ask the question. At times, my pursuit of self sufficiency gets a bit ridiculous. (In case you’re wondering, I don’t like asking for directions either; I map it out ahead of time.)

However, I’m discovering that refusing to ask questions is costing me in other ways. Sometimes a project gets dragged out for much longer than it needs to be if I’d just asked, but heaven forbid I don’t appear competent or fully knowledgeable on something. Knowing that I have the problem has helped and prompted me to ask questions at times when I wouldn’t have in the past, but it’s also spilled over into other areas.

Asking for Help

Living on one’s own can’t help but make you more willing to experiment and figure out how to do things solo. But, just like my aversion to asking questions, I sometimes go too far. One winter I ordered a new chair. I picked up the new chair from the furniture store and got it to my house. Since my mother knows me so well, she tried to make me promise to wait until I had help to move the chair into the house. I don’t know if I actually promised or just made the reassuring statements that we all tell our mothers. After considering all my options, I decided that it was possible for me to move the chair myself. Luckily I damaged neither myself, the chair, or the house in the process, but there were several moments when I wondered what the hell I was doing and why I didn’t wait for help.

It Feels Like a Weakness

Perhaps I’m in the minority, but asking questions or for help feels like a weakness (even if it’s not). Logically I know this isn’t true, but emotionally it feels very true. By posing the question or request, I’m setting myself up to either be helped or mocked, and for some reason, I assume that the more likely outcome is the latter. This expectation has lessened to a degree as I’ve surrounded myself with real friends over the years, but it hasn’t fully stamped out that tiny kernel of skepticism that I’m better off asking for nothing. It also hasn’t stopped me from wondering about what I’ve missed because I’ve chosen to remain silent.

A Question a Day

In the same vein as an apple a day, I think it may be worthwhile to challenge myself to a question a day, and not just any question, but one that makes me uncomfortable. (And no, it won’t be because the question is tacky.) Few questions will result in anything worse than being told, “No,” and recovering from “no” is doable. But I am tired of wondering, perhaps enough to actually do something, like ask the question.

So here’s my question for today: what get’s in the way of you asking your questions or asking for help?

“I have that pattern at home.”

“I could sew that.”

“That’s too much money.”

It’s one thing if someone doesn’t like my work, but I was baffled to hear in one form or another the idea that what I did was so easy they could either replicate it themselves or didn’t see the value. The price I put on my items covers the cost of materials and maybe minimum wage for the number of hours worked. I do the work because I love it, but I refuse to let people dismiss my hard work, and by connection the hard work of others like me.

Not Only Handmade

The perception that something is easy to do seems to have taken hold in a way I haven’t seen previously. While I appreciate fully the power of technology to make certain tasks more accessible to a wider number of people, technology does not completely counter the need for skills or frankly, a lot of hard work.

Think about the people in the online world who’ve achieved great success. Without fail there’s always the dismissers, the people who are quick to say, “I could do that,” but never do. They’re quick to criticize, usually without offering a valid alternative.

I’m tired of seeing and hearing people who “don’t” attack the people who “do.”

You don’t have to like my work, but don’t you dare say that it’s easy or has no value. Maybe not to you, but unless you’re willing to ante up, I don’t want to hear it anymore.

If you want to have a best-selling book, write one. Quit slamming people who’ve already got one. If you want to host a widely popular webinar AND charge money for it, then figure out what the market wants and do it. If you want a custom quilt, then by hell, buy the 12 different fabrics, cut out 200+ pieces, and sew the damn thing together.

It’s not easy to sit down and come up with words that string together into powerful sentences and come together to make big ideas. And it’s not easy to take your version of the blank canvas and create something out of nothing. It make may look easy, but that’s just the result of time and a willingness to do the hard work.

So the next time you see me, please don’t say, “I could do that, too.” I highly doubt it, and you’ll just piss me off.

So the experiment by PhD student Kjerstin Gruys to avoid mirrors for a year struck me as both inspired and demented at the same time. As I understand it, Gruys wanted to see if she could lessen the power of the mirror to determine how she both “sees” and thinks of herself. It seems the willpower required to complete the experiment might boomerang, making one think about how they look even more. But based on her personal accounting of the experiment, things are going well, which got me thinking about my relationship with mirrors.

Unlike some women, I don’t mind mirrors. It stems in large part from something my science teacher explained my freshman year. As I understand it, a flat mirror reflection is not a true reflection of reality. It’s why we have to do everything in reverse. The only way to see what we really look like is to place two mirrors at right angles to each other, forming half a box. Only then, when looking in the corner, does one see her true reflection. So in some respects, I consider my image in the mirror to be a mirage of sort, and it’s rare that I take issue with what I see, because I don’t believe it. Unfortunately I’m not nearly as pragmatic about how I look in photographs.

The All-Seeing Eye

I loathe photos. If I can find a way to avoid having my picture taken, I leap at it. Even though my training and experience has shown that pretty much every photo and image that exists on a wide scale is Photoshopped, I still measure and judge how I look in photos. I can safely say that since my mom stopped requiring the annual school photo, I’ve only had my picture taken officially eight times and half of those instances were because of weddings. There are a few random snapshots, most taken without my knowledge. In general, I’d prefer the camera just break right before taking my picture. Harsh? Without question, but an attitude I find difficult to shake.

While I’m mildly interested by what I see in the mirror (anything sticking in my teeth?), I don’t “see” or think of myself as the person that appears in pictures. Chalk it up to a small case of crazy, but it bothers me that my left eye appears smaller than my right eye in pictures, particularly if I smile. And my smile…well, let’s just say that my parents wasted their money on four years of braces. Unless forced, I do not smile with my teeth because it ends up looking just that, forced and fake.

Like Gruys experiment to avoid mirrors, I resolved a long time ago to avoid pictures since they don’t make me feel particularly good about myself. But I suspect this doesn’t really solve the problem. As long as I believe that I look “bad” in pictures, then there’s a problem. I wish there was a magic potion that made me if not love, at least not hate how I look in photographs. I think many other women probably feel the same way. I don’t need to see myself as a model or a movie star, but I do need to see myself as, well, me. Whatever that means.

All Shapes and Sizes

Our idea of normal varies from place to place. On Monday, I noticed a Facebook post from a friend who mentioned that it had come up in conversation that New Zealand female models are larger as compared to their American counterparts. So American designers have to bring in transplants to do any shows in New Zealand because the samples won’t fit the local models. For all the talk about “your size is the right size,” there is still social pressure that pushes smaller as better.

Beyond size, hair color and length, makeup usage, and even personal grooming habits are up for judgment. We compare ourselves against the frankly ridiculous routines described in People by women who are paid to essentially look a certain way. The same thing goes every time I read about an amazing weight loss after giving birth. Real women rarely have the resources or the time to compete on this level, and yet that’s the baseline against which we judge ourselves and others.

Everything I outlined today isn’t new. In fact, it’s kind of old and boring, but that doesn’t make talking about it honestly any less important. I suspect if men were pushed they’d admit to being tired of not measuring up to Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or any of the werewolves that appeared in the Twilight series. We can’t ignore that physical beauty and its many interpretations are a part of society, but we do need to be realistic about the role we allow it to play in the perception we have of ourselves and others.

Looking Past the Mirror

I hope Gruys’ experiment accomplishes exactly what she wants. She has received criticism (of course), but in response, I was thrilled to see her answer to one critic’s point that “Avoidance is not the same as acceptance:”

Missing the look of my body has made me appreciate it more… a sort of valuing things that are now scarce. Yet, the most important thing that is changing isn’t the amount of hate or love I have for any certain body part: it’s the extent to which my appearance shapes my self-image, overall. By taking some emphasis OFF of how I look, I can focus more clearly on all of the other things that make me, uniquely, me. And this, my friends, has been the most delicious and positive change I could have asked for.

How many of us have taken the time to ask what makes us special without automatically defaulting to our appearance? It’s a reminder for me and I hope for you, too, that what we see in the mirror (or a photo) is just a small slice of the much bigger, and much more important, whole.

Patent Trolls

If you haven’t listened to “When Patents Attack!” on This American Life, do so immediately. As usual, the fantastic storytelling of this talented group tackles what seems on the surface like a not-so-big deal: companies suing each other over patents. It probably happens every day, so why the concern?

Because the intent has changed.

Where companies used to rely on patents to protect their inventions, they now rely on buying or leasing massive libraries of patents to protect them from lawsuits instigated by businesses whose whole model relies on buying patents and then suing companies who infringe (supposedly) on said patents.

What makes this practice particularly nasty is how the patents themselves have changed. In past years, receiving a patent meant identifying something very specific that was new and protecting that particular innovation. However, patents of late have been issued to cover very broad areas that arguably do not fit the intended goal of protecting a specific and new area of discovery. “When Patents Attack!” outlines several examples, including a patent issued for toast. Yes, toast. Even more frustrating, several patents have been issued that overlap with each other, creating competing patents for the same thing.

So what does this mean to you and me? It means that big companies are probably insulated from such attacks and lawsuits. For you and me, it means that starting a new technology venture will be filled with patent land mines just waiting to be stepped on. Small companies cannot afford to fund long-term litigation, so when they receive a letter demanding they pay for use of patents that these companies hold, the options are limited. To avoid closing their doors, these companies pay up, funding yet more legal action against other companies that are unknowingly infringing on patents.

Patents were meant to provide protection to the inventors so they would share their designs and we could all benefit. However, today’s patent protections are so broad companies like Apple and Microsoft are willing to pay billions to build a patent library to protect themselves from lawsuits. This American Life captured the travesty perfectly when it noted that those are funds that now won’t be spent on actual innovation.

Copyright Conundrum

Others much smarter than me have written in detail about the ongoing fight over extending copyright and ways to fix it. These battles include the efforts of companies whose business model relies on contracting with content creators to police “fair use” of their content and then issue either cease and desist letters or outright bills when they find content supposedly being used inappropriately.

As a writer, I’m clearly on the side of making sure that my content is protected in the sense that I don’t want someone claiming my original thoughts as their own. However, I fail to see the benefit of suing someone for using a paragraph of my content if appropriate attribution is used. And frankly, we’re all copying each other anyway.

The Creators’ Responsibility

We’re at a crossroads. Systems like Creative Commons are one way we can push back as creators. But we also need to talk about it and push back. When the reports for the patent story tried to find people in Silicon Valley to talk to for their story, they hit a wall. One guy was willing to go on the record. Bullies have power as long as we stay silent. If we don’t like the existing systems, we need to create new ones that do support our vision of a vibrant and innovative community.

Every time I buy a new tablet, it marks a potential moment of discovery, of possibility. All too often I open that new tablet, stare at the first page, and then close the cover with regret. I want perfection to grace the pages of my lovely tablet, and at those moments, I’m keenly aware that perfect I am not.

The pristine tablet is both the bane and the highest hope of my writing life. As I stare at the bookshelf that holds my tablet collection, I’m caught up in words I hope will one day fill their pages, but I hesitate.

I know I’m not the only writer who stares at the blank page and wonders if what they’ll write will be enough. The other day a friend complimented some recent writing, and I replied that my efforts to stick to a regular writing schedule were less than successful. I confessed that it seemed all I wanted to do of late was read other people’s words. He wisely noted that, “Reading leads to writing.”

Practicing With Other People’s Words

Last Saturday, I listened to an interview on Fresh Air with author Donald Ray Pollock. To teach himself how to write, he used a time-honored tradition of typing out other people’s stories to practice. And I wondered, how does that work for someone who writes nonfiction (like me)? Does the same principle apply?

It does, but not in the ways you might imagine. At some point, the author of whatever book I have opened in front of me stared at a blank page, and somehow, they started putting words on it. The sheer volume of bound words that decorates my shelves stands as a testament to another battle won against the blank page. And it gives me hope that the next time I’ll win my battle.

At first blush, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to claim this word, let alone reclaim it. Slut is whipped out frequently to identify women who show lots of skin or appear (note: not necessarily are) promiscuous. It’s also used (unimaginatively) by talk show hosts to attack opponents. So imagine my surprise when I learned today about SlutWalks.

Blame It On Canada

It all started in Canada. A Toronto police officer commented to students at York University that if women wanted to avoid rape, they shouldn’t dress like “sluts.” In the ensuing uproar, SlutWalks were born. As I understand the movement, groups of women and men gather together wearing everything from bustiers to jeans. They then march and rally to call attention to the oft-repeated argument that women are somehow “asking for it” if they dress “slutty.” One sign at the Toronto SlutWalk stated, “Don’t tell us how to dress. Tell men not to rape.”

Here’s the problem: why focus on reclaiming a word that will never have a positive connotation?

Whenever I see a campaign that’s based on the idea of “we’ll change people’s perceptions of a negative concept,” I wonder why advocates handicap themselves from the beginning. People think what they think when someone says the word slut. So why anchor a much-needed campaign for change with the weight of a word that doesn’t help your cause?

The Contradiction

Rebecca Traister captures what I also see as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to SlutWalks and, by connection, reclaiming the word slut:

To object to these ugly characterizations is right and righteous. But to do so while dressed in what look like sexy stewardess Halloween costumes seems less like victory than capitulation (linguistic and sartorial) to what society already expects of its young women. Scantily clad marching seems weirdly blind to the race, class and body-image issues that usually (rightly) obsess young feminists and seems inhospitable to scads of women who, for various reasons, might not feel it logical or comfortable to express their revulsion at victim-blaming by donning bustiers. So while the mission of SlutWalks is crucial, the package is confusing and leaves young feminists open to the very kinds of attacks they are battling.

If, as women, we say we don’t want to be judged by our clothing, be it a mini skirt or a potato sack, why has attire become such a noticeable part of this movement? Putting one’s body on display for a cause isn’t new (Lady Godiva, anyone?), but the effectiveness of such efforts seems questionable. In large part it’s because the focus becomes less about the what one is advocating for and more about just how much skin one is showing.

Fighting the Wrong Battle

Blaming the victim has been a part of our culture for a long time, and it won’t go away overnight. Advocates are definitely needed to provide a counter voice to the problem, but part of me wonders if proponents of SlutWalks and reclaiming the word are fighting the wrong battle. Yes, SlutWalks make for “sexy,” attention-grabbing headlines, but does this approach leave out the very people it’s trying to help?

Harsah Walia makes the argument that “…the term disproportionately impacts women of colour and poor women to reinforce their status as inherently dirty and second-class, and hence more rape-able.” She goes on to note that the women most likely to be marginalized and in need of help were not necessarily comfortable marching.

Perhaps my misgivings are misplaced, but I struggle to see how putting “slut” front and center changes the balance. As long as we’re giving voice to them, words have power. I’m not sure that the current flowing through this particular word can ever be changed from negative to positive.

I love books. While I’ll pass up new shoes or tech toys with little complaint, walking out of a bookstore empty handed is almost painful. But out of my collection of 2,300+ perhaps only half have been read, leading me to wonder if I need to stop buying books for now. I technically have the space (there’s still room to set up a few more shelves), but it’s difficult at times to avoid feeling guilty when I enter my library and realize I haven’t read more of the books in that room.

I feel the same sense of guilt when I don’t take full advantage of all the tools we have at our disposal right now. Google+ has been the hot topic the last few weeks, but I have yet to enter a status update despite setting up a few circles. Twitter creates great connection points at times, but weeks go by between my updates unless I’m at a conference. It comes down to a sense of it all being too much at times, which feels like a contradiction because I love information and new ideas. Between my books and the Internet, I’ve gained access to knowledge that someone 50 years ago didn’t know existed.

But I do question my ability to manage the flow of all that information. A friend of mine described it in terms of urgent versus important. The urgent things are new emails popping up in the inbox as compared to the important, like completing a long-term plan. In his view, the urgent often gets in the way of the important, but we often miss the signs because urgent demands our attention RIGHT NOW.

As much as I may enjoy reading the updates of friends, keeping up with current events, and adding one more book to the read pile, I do think about the important things that are being sacrificed. Information and our access to it can change the world, but if we haven’t figured out how to connect the flow with action, information loses its power.

My middle hasn’t been very good. The next more recent post was almost a year ago, and I’ve used plenty of excuses in the interim to justify why I haven’t picked up the proverbial pen. For awhile, I blamed it on writer’s block. Then it became a question of time. Behind every excuse was a much more difficult question to answer: what did I actually want to write about?

Current events are always options. History adds a certain flavor, too. But ultimately it comes back to why I started this blog in the first place: I love words. So it seems silly to not write about what matters to me without expectations that it will matter to anyone else. Now it’s time to see if I can make my middle something worthwhile.

Avoiding the Issue

When I’m assessing an argument, I always find it interesting to see who can say the most with the least. During the interview with Matt and Chris on Mixergy, interviewer Andrew Warner posed the question of what Pearson needed to do to bring his premium theme into compliance. Matt’s response: “He just has to say it’s the GNU GPL. That’s it.”

Warner queried Chris as to the impact this change would have on his business. Chris’s answer:

Well, I think it would have a variety of different impacts on the business. The most important one to me is simply my right as an individual to put out some creative work that is independent. WordPress did not empower me to write this software, I wrote all this stuff. I thought about all this stuff. I thought about all the data structures inherent to hosting a webpage. I’ve constructed this all myself. I take great pride in that. I, also, get a little bit defensive when all of that is attacked as if because WordPress existed prior to me coming up with all this stuff that is somehow have to adhere to something that was established beforehand. That’s not fair. That’s like charging our children with debt that we accrue now. I’m not in line with that philosophy. I think that’s terrible.

Feel something’s missing, like an answer? So did Warner and Mullenweg. When pressed to clarify, Chris responded:

One, it would require me to make a concession about something that I don’t think that I need to concede to…

The number two thing in how my business would be affected is if I was to go to GPL that means that anyone can take my code and do whatever they want with it for any purpose they please…

I kept waiting for Chris to argue the specific license parameters of why Thesis doesn’t need to be GPL. However, Pearson was so vague on that topic I had difficulty following his rationale why Thesis doesn’t need to adopt GPL.

Random Arguments

Despite the strong feelings on both sides of the argument, I’m intrigued by the randomness of Pearson’s arguments. He veers between saying I just don’t want to, to my work stands alone. At this point, he hasn’t said anything too eyebrow raising, but then we get to the point where Mullenweg points out that Chris has the option of building things for other platforms that are non-GPL. Chris responds with:

I guess my point in all of this is, if you are going to have a license, make it enforceable and enforce it. If you’re not, then don’t. This is all just a bunch of discourse over nothing. Actually, I think all that it’s doing, what it looks like, is enhancing my position and importance within the marketplace, which would seem to be a counterintuitive goal for you. You’d be better off saying nothing and trying to take me to court or doing something undercover, behind the scenes, something. Instead, you chose to fight this thing out front that leaves many question marks on both sides of the fence. I am not saying anything outrageous here. I think a reasonable person would hear this conversation and be genuinely confused about the sate [sic] of things. That’s what I think. You know, what does that really say about this whole thing?

If you follow Pearson’s logic, WordPress and Mullenweg aren’t serious because they aren’t enforcing the license, and if they were, they’d take Thesis to court.

Off the Rails

Despite his best intentions, Pearson doesn’t come out looking very good in this discussion. Even if you’re a Pearson advocate, this exchange between he and Matt doesn’t seem to advance his position is a positive way. For example, he looks particularly silly when he brings in the comparison that while attending college in Georgia “apparently it was illegal, in the Georgia State Doctrine, it was illegal to get a blowjob in the State of Georgia.”

Seriously? How does this point add to your argument? Why not introduce case law or other industry perspectives that support your position? Overall, Matt’s arguments end up stronger because he supports his position with points of reference that make sense (e.g., Free Software Foundation, Software Freedom Law Center, etc.). Again, whether you think Matt or Chris is right, it’s difficult to see how Chris advances his position using the arguments outlined in this discussion.

Too often we overlook the potential we have to advance our causes when we think carefully about the arguments we want to make. Passion isn’t enough when it comes to defending one’s position. The debate between Chris and Matt highlights what can happen when we refuse to analyze why we’ve taken a position and how to describe why we’re holding to that position.

There’s no question that this situation is an ugly one. There’s no question that more than one player bears responsibility for what happened a mile under the ocean. And there’s no question the president, either of this country [or BP for that matter], can fix this disaster. It’s a job for the experts, people who’ve trained for years in their field, but given our want-it-now attitudes, we’re upset they haven’t shot the silver bullet into the oil well.

We Want Heroes

In a perfect world, the people put in positions of immense authority (i.e. presidents of countries and companies) would be able to solve every problem that crosses their paths immediately. After all, they do have power. The reality is much murkier and more complicated than we like to acknowledge.

Contrary to popular opinion, President Obama can’t do much more than he’s doing at the moment. He isn’t an oil engineer, a deep-sea diver, or a scientist. Take him to task for not better managing the agencies he oversees, but stop following the crazy logic that he has magical powers he’s choosing not to use to cap the well. Does anyone believe he wouldn’t rather focus his time and attention on the million other things a president has to face?

BP Pays a Price

As I’ve listened to the commentators go on and on about BP’s failure to cap the well, I’ve heard little about the price it’s paying. [Yes, I'm aware it doesn't compare to the livelihoods lost by individuals.] BP may be a big company, but you’ve heard of dying by a thousand cuts. Lawsuits will last years, BP is literally bleeding as its product spews into the ocean, and off-shore drilling will be forever changed by this event.

BP and its contractors will be fined, heavily one suspects, and they’ve completely lost whatever ground they gained when they rebranded themselves as “beyond petroleum.” Be angry at BP for not being better prepared, for not asking more questions about fail safes. But keep in mind that BP wishes like everyone else that this had never happened. BP’s main goal is not to upset the entire ecosystem of the Gulf. It’s to make money. So when you’re yelling, “Why can’t BP fix the problem?” know they’re probably yelling the same question at each other.

Why Presidents Can’t Fix Disasters

If you believe that the guys on the ground aren’t giving it their all to fix this problem, I question your rationale. The only people who have anything to gain are proponents of alternative energy, and even they must cringe at the thought of benefiting openly from an oil spill.

In our 24/7 world we believe the solutions to problems should be immediate. We believe that all worse-case scenarios should have perfected reactions. And we believe that the man or woman who holds the highest office should be able to fix our problems. This argument isn’t political, but logistical. To assume that the guy or gal in charge is the road block to solving the problems we face gives him or her too much power.

You may have resources others do not as a president or leader, but those resources don’t necessarily work any better for you because they’re still manned by humans. You know, that imperfect creature you see in the mirror every day.

Challenge the systems that aren’t working. Challenge the people in charge to push for more information, for more answers. But don’t fall into the trap of believing one person can fix a disaster. I’d like to believe that if that was the case, said person would rise to the challenge, but we don’t elect or hire Superman or Wonder Woman. We hire real people, people like us who don’t always have the answers. If they’re incompetent, they need to be fired. If they fail to ask questions, they need to be fired. But if they’re doing everything that’s possible, we’re fools to set expectations that no one can live up to.