General :: Community
Hello,
This post is well, just something I have to get out. Since this is a blog, well it’s the perfect medium to show you who I am.
Just recently I received an email about a comment I posted on someone’s blog 2 months ago. This person contacted me and wanted code samples from what I had ‘inferred’ I had created from the post on this persons blog.
Well, after I told them that I was busy and didn’t actually post code, that this was just a comment on a blog and sorry but no code. This person then decided to get me ticked off. They emailed me back and said that I had basically taken much from the community to get where I am at and ‘thanks’ for giving back to the community that helped me learn and knwo what I know now.
Well, now doesn’t this sound like someone I would have a hard time communicating with. Let’s define what Mike’s idea of community is and see if we jive…
Community. This is an impossible paradigm to reach if you have an attitude that life is ‘infinite’ and we are all the same humans inside.
Let me tell you something about community. It’s an ideal; and ideal born from wanting to help others that don’t have the information that you possesses. I have worked for 5 years to understand the things that I know. Do you think just because I have sacrificed 5 years of my life, family and general well being that it is something that I take lightly?
NO.
When you get to a level of understanding you want a fair share, a give take attitude. Most people reading this that have entertained the actual idea of embracing or spawning a community know that it is an ideal that will never be accomplished. You subscribe to this ‘board-mailing list’ that is great and give your 2 cents five times a day.
When you actually ask a question, it never gets answered. Plus, the sharks that roam these areas looking for fresh meat kill off the greatest minds in that community. I bet a couple of you reading this are ‘that’ type. Or the ‘have to be right all the time’ type that screws the whole communal communication channel through their inability to see both sides. Regardless.
What does this do?
It makes you recoil and say, well maybe I need to take care of myself. Ironically, you still give to the community but it hardly ever gives back. Common now, if this whole community effort ever really existed in this world there would be no wars, no starving children, no religious perils. What I am getting at is, you realize you have to take care of #1.
This means that when you get to a level of understanding, you need to grow, monetarily and materially.
I hate knowing there are millions that strive for things that I may take for granted but, this is the idea of life. If you truly live by a moral of community, you finally find the places that your effort in it comes around 10 fold. Just because I don’t give away information to someone I don’t know doesn’t mean I don’t know what community means; I mean I know exactly what community means and I also know that it can kill you.
It’s the martyr complex. You live selflessly and never get what you give into the community. So in effect it’s like pouring a half of cup of water and getting on quarter cup back. Any programmer can write this equation in a script and see that eventually from your total your receive negative.
while(true)
vitality–;
So let’s get this straight; The true philanthropists are millionaires. You know why? Millionaires have more to give than that that will drain them of their very essence.
UPDATE :: I also believe when you have ‘made it’ in your older years, the whole Open Source route looks great, finding a place for your fruit. When you have no fruit, say in your 20-40’s Open Source is a joke.
The moral;
When you reach a point of understanding, you better make sure you have more than enough to give back to a community that will drain the very soul from your body.
Once I get to this point you all will know, it will be like I see in my dreams. Right now, that is just a dream and community is just a dream.
Peace, Mike