Fun Size Bytes

I’m quoting/paraphrasing M. Scott Peck from memory, because I can’t find the exact quote, but it goes something like this:

“There are two great sins that you can commit against community. The first is speaking when you have nothing to say. The second is not speaking when you do have something to say.”

That being said, sometimes the only way that I can think something through is by writing it.

1) Sometimes that ends up a draft which may or may not get edited/posted later.

2) Sometimes it gets deleted.

2a) Sometimes it gets deleted because all I really needed to do was write it, not post it.

2b) Sometimes it gets deleted because I have a thought that won’t come together the way I want it to.

2c) Sometimes it gets deleted because it seems guaranteed to generate more ‘heat’ than ‘light’ (even if that wasn’t my intention). This is especially true if there’s something particularly nuanced that I’m trying to say because this is the Internet, “where nuance goes to die.”

3) Sometimes it gets posted immediately.

4) Sometimes it gets queued, and then I delete it or sent to ‘draft’ before it posts. (Don’t set your queue to post too often or you’ll miss this window!)

5) Sometimes it gets queued and it feels good to have written it. So I leave it in the queue.

It’s almost always #3 that I regret later, or at least wish that I had taken more time with it. 2c ends up irritating me more than it should have, especially because whatever I had to say is probably not nearly worth the time I’ve spent thinking about whether or not I should say it, because the answer is most likely no, based on the images at the top of this post. Which is why I leave them unposted.

(via tbridge)