As life moves on and the years start adding up, people tend to sit down and reflect more. This is probably still my weakest point, I like moving forward too much to really sit down. Nevertheless I have learned to not always immediately react on things anymore, sometimes I even know when to shut up. Occasionally I still fail at the latter.
Generally though, I tend to live a quiet background life all while being the dynamic me people know. While trying to still be prolific I really enjoy living in the shadows. It is nice there, not too hot nor too bright.
Believe me when I say that I do know how it feels to live in the spotlights and the three people who have followed this blog since years do know that I do not shun these spotlights either. But I’m getting old and people change.
Suffice to say that I was very surprised today to find myself in the crossfire or rather the line of fire from someone I do not know. In the middle of a very hostile and spiteful attack.
An anonymous ‘ex-member’ spit his/her gal on the latest 9rules blog entry, going fully frontal. After several personal and/or inside details on the former 9rules Triad (and my publisher) were revealed it was the turn of my colleague Andy, my boss Mark and myself.
Being under SplashPress is supposed to make members feel better? Didn’t the crappy sites get added when Andy was running 9rules? You said you didn’t like the direction of 9rules, but you gave Andy a promotion. Frank is managing editor? He’s too busy looking up to you to be qualified. The descriptions on the team page are all lies. You aren’t fooling anyone. You’re still messing up and Mark is letting you by not getting you a qualified team. You might be running things but Mark owns 9rules and I hold him completely responsible. His network is trash and he’s ruining a quality site.
It would be easy to rebut this and go into detail how Andy wasn’t involved with the latest Round, I had left SPM all while being a long term participant to Splashpress Media. Or even by saying that I probably stopped following 9rules long before ‘Ex-member’, but I won’t. This entry isn’t about hitting back or defending myself. Nor is it about admiration.
Life’s Too Nice To Be Spiteful
Life’s too short and the future belongs to those who look forward
I am nowhere near perfect and hate to admit this. But as the years move by I have learned many things and I continue to learn daily. I have examples in life, people who motivate me to continuously improve and keep an eye on the real world. Understand what really does matter. Remind me how lucky we are.
There is more to life than look back at errors people made and hit out at them for those. Nature is lovely but cruel at the same time. Over the last 12 months several thousand people lost their life due to earthquakes, landslides and typhoons. Others were killed at war and people just around the corner of your and my doorstep live in poverty, some even die on the streets.
In our Western society, especially those of us who live mainly online, we barely know what it means to suffer but instead we get sucked up in meaningless disputes on ‘tinternet. Laugh at the best fails of 2009, no matter how harsh and painful several are. We do not respect our roots anymore and forget that what really matters. That what only seems to move people when disaster strikes. The spirit of community and siding together. Hate’s more important to many of us.
Love Each Other. Grow Up and Improve
Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it
I love admiring people. Each and everyone daily reminds me that I have to improve, work at everything I do. Probably I even have gathered lots of inspiration from ‘Ex-member’, maybe I still read Ex-members site on a regular basis. Who knows, I don’t know who ‘Ex-member’ is. What I do know though is that every single day I get up and want to improve not only this site, the sites I write on but also, and most of all, my own tolerance levels. Days like today prove that I am doing damn fine and believe me, life’s really nice if that’s your motto and that’s how you live. My idols help me reach out to what initially seem unreachable situations.
Life’s too short and we only get one shot at it. Face the truth, there is too much misery on this planet to get stuck in disputes.
Be your own worst critic and the worst critic of your idols and you’ll do fine. I know I am.
Photo credit: Talia Twilight Photography.
