[Foundation-l] Commissions, committees - discussions et al ...

Fri Jun 9 11:08:14 UTC 2006

Could we please stop for some days? It does not make sense to struggle 
and fight and get rigid on one or the other side. Discussions are 
getting too emotional and that does not help anyone.

Please understand: committees are growing bit by bit - it is already 
difficult to work in a small group - it will be even more difficult to 
work in a large group. That initially committees or commissions work by 
invitation makes sense, because people who know each other come together 
and it will be easier to organise initial work (and it is not said that 
even if we know each other we have the same opinions and thoughts).

Being all of us people who do this in their free time, having to cope 
with all sorts of problems, I suppose that for now we should grow slowly 
if we want to assure that things go the right way.

It does not mean that we don't want to discuss or communicate - it is 
just a matter of fact that each one of us has 24 hours a day - eight of 
which are occupied with work (normally) - eight of them should be sleep 
(I hardly ever reach that amount ;-). Then there is family life, social 
life and the projects.

Of course everyone of us has his/her favourite project (nobody can deny 
this), everyone of us tries to do things the best way he/she can, 
everyone of us has his/her own way to express, often things are screwed 
up because of misinterpretation and not knowing the other person well 
enough - or we seem to know someone, but really don't because we are not 
"listening enough" (and I am not an exception to this).

Please consider also one thing: written messages can be easily 
misunderstood because of two very simple facts:

1) the writer does not know in which emotional state the person reading 
his/her message is and therefore interpretation of written text can vary 
a lot
2) the reader does not know in which emotional state the writer was at 
the time of writing

Then: there is that time delay effect: while you are writing about a 
problem, the problem itself can already be on its way to solution or 
already solved.

Now people will think: "well, so we should not put any emotions in 
written messages" ... uhm ... really that is impossible, because we are 
human beings.

I myself very often avoid to mix into discussions - because of the above 
reasons and not because of not having an own opinion. It could easily 
happen that I write an emotional loaded message without really noting it 
- and who reads then would have huge problems to understand the reason: 
it could be a relative not being well, the kids making simply too much 
trouble, a fight with a friend or simply the oven that did not work when 
I wanted to make "that pizza" or the parrot making terrible noise having 
learnt how the phone rings etc.

That's why very often it makes sense to answer privately if you think 
something with a message is wrong - or just wait a day or two to make 
sure you really want to write something the way you did in first place.

Strange days will always happen - the more people are toghether in one 
place the more often such problems will arise.

So please: let's keep calm for some days - things will work out well :-) 
I believe in positivity.

Best wishes from Italy.

Sabine

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale! 
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