Ping Me

AZD asked on the Facebook what it means to "ping" someone.  She said that many people over the age of 35 seemed to be asking her to do so, of late.  To which I replied that her old friends were nerds and posted the link to a wikipedia article without any further explanation.  It was an overly curt response making me come off as an insulting jackass.

Some were embarassed.  Some thought I was rude.  One person disagreed with me, saying that pinging is the same as IM'ing.  That it's a term from the dialup days and that traders use it too.

Rather than explain myself further there, I started to unpacking the whole concept.

First, it's not a terrible thing to be old and a nerd.  If you are enough of a nerd to remember the "ping" utility by firsthand experience, you have come by your internet access by authentic and legitimate means.  Massive cool points to you.

Second, it's possible that for a lot of people pinging is IM'ing.  For this kind of person to ping someone is just to speak to them by text over IM or other device.  Communication received not through speech.

This does not begin to unpack the feeling, the flavor, or the intention of the request when I make it.

Obvious Disclaimer: this is not the exact truth, only my take on it.

Essay: What Ping Means To Me

Back in the day, if you wanted to send something from one machine (computer) to another, you needed confirm that there was a live connection and that the other machine was on, functioning and able to receive what you wanted to send.  It would be a shame, a waste to send it all only to have it be lost because you did not check first.  Perhaps a tragedy.

Ping is a very small program written to send the smallest message from one machine to another.  It asks, "Hey, are you there?", waits for a given amount of time for an answer, and then let's you know.  With a positive response, you have a level of confidence that your next message will get through and be safely received.

Ping acknowledges that in communication the attention and receptivity of the receiver is essential.  That listening matters and is an active part of the equation.  That responding matters.  That this shared agreement matters.  That communication requires an active channel in both directions.

It is pragmatic.  It is courteous.

Sometimes people get mad at me for not knowing something because they sent it to me by text or email or chat. Sometimes I get mad at people for the same reason.  But the thing is.  We cannot assume that everyone on the planet lives their life waiting to hear from us.  Sometimes they are.  Especially now that so many of us carry so many networked devices with us.  But carrying it doesn't mean that the other person is or should be glued to it.  They might be eating a strawberry or making love or watching a movie.  They might be taking a much needed nap or working or savoring a moment of silence.  They might be talking to other people, face to face.  They might be basking in sunlight.

Ping them.  Make sure that they are there and can pay attention.  Make sure that they are in a state where they are receptive to communication and can respond.  Establish that agreement and then proceed.

Note to Self

I forget that people who tell you their problems are rarely interested in solutions.

And there are lots of people who get more pleasure from shooting down your ideas and making you out to be an idiot for daring to try to understand and help.  Best to stay home with a book.

Dietary needs

I have eaten corn tortilla chips for dinner two nights in a row.  The second night with industrial nacho cheese.  This cannot be good.

An oversimplification for all of us lonely people.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be loved.  Nothing.  It's perfectly natural.  Everyone wants to be loved.

But it's not simple.

The problem is that you can't just whip up a plan of action for how you are going to get that to happen.  It often seems that the more effort you put forward in trying to get specific people to love you, the weirder things get.

Perhaps the best approach is to focus on loving the people in your life and who you meet.  Perhaps the best approach is to not get overly fixated on figuring out how to be loved by a particular person.

Even then, that is not the whole story.

You might need to recognize not just that you want to be loved but also that you are, in fact, lovable and that it is possible for others to love you.  It's possible for you to have this thing that you want.

Easier said than done.  Consider it a challenge.

You might need to recognize when someone is not being loving to you.  In your desire to be loved you will be vulnerable and might encounter people who will not be careful and respectful.  You have options.   You could draw their attention to this and ask them to stop or you could leave.  Recognize that staying in such a situation might cause you injury and scarring.  This will make it that much harder for you to love and receive the love of others.


Part of the challenge is recognizing that you perceive the love of others in a specific way, perhaps unique to you and won't always recognize love if it is not expressed to you on your terms.  Someone might be expressing love to you now.


Even if you do recognize that love is being expressed, if it's not in a way that fills that space in you, it might not be enough.  You might have to translate it for yourself.  Or you might have to ask for  what you need and recognizing that they might not be willing or able to give it to you.  Are you okay with accepting love as they express it or do you need for it to be expressed your way?

There is no right or wrong in this.  It might even be context dependent.  It's just useful to understand.

Love, we all want it and we all do it, surely at some point we can get what we want from the person we give it to.

Or you could get a dog.  By "you", I mean me and you and him and her and all of us.

Then again, what do I know?

Square 1 - NYer Quote

"You would think that by then I would have developed some confidence in  writing a new story, but I hadn't, and never would.  To lack confidence at the outset seems rational to me.  It doesn't matter that something you've done before worked out well.  Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you.  Square 1 does not become Square 2, just Square 1 squared and cubed."

John McPhee, The New Yorker, January 14, 2013
The Writing Life
Structure
Beyond the picnic-table crisis

Danish TV - NYerQuotes

Excessively charming quotes from a New Yorker article on Danish TV, taken out of context to be savored:

The second thing that revolutionized Danish television was a trip to America.  In the mid-nineties, DR [Denmark's public-service broadcaster] sent several of its top executives and producers to Los Angeles,where they visited the sets of "N.Y.P.D. Blue," "L.A. Law," and "24."  They returned to Denmark with new concepts: writers' rooms, showrunners, multi-episode series ... Gjervig Gram [writer for "Borgen"] explained, "We said, 'We're going to do it the American way,' but it took some year to find the Danish way to do it the American way." 

Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, January 7, 2013
LETTER FROM COPENHAGEN
Danish Postmodern
Why Scandinavian TV has so many fans

"... I think we sometimes have to look in the mirror and think, We're not always cozy, we're not always Hans Christian Andersen," [Soren] Sveistrup [writer for "The Killing"] said.  "Lego, Tivoli - that's our P.R., that's how we lure you to come here, but we're just as corrupt and power-sick as everyone else." 

Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, January 7, 2013
LETTER FROM COPENHAGEN
Danish Postmodern
Why Scandinavian TV has so many fans

On the benefits of being married to a youthful looking woman

People ask me if your Mom is my daughter.  I tell them, 'No, she's my third wife.'
- My Dad

Lincoln in the House

Dear Republican Party,

I saw the movie "Lincoln" over the holiday.  Once upon a time you guys were AWESOME.

What the hell happened?

Sincerely,

Ergo

Paying for content

My parents bought me a gift subscription to the New Yorker.  The whole paying for the written word - it's unheard of.

I find that despite my best efforts and intentions, I cannot keep up with this subscription.  No matter how diligently I plow through an issue, another one crops up waaaay before I am done with the one that I have been slogging around.

There are stacks of them everywhere.  I tell myself that it's okay to throw them away, but it's not.  Trees have died.  My parents spent part of their hard earned retirement to give me access to the kind of writing that they feel their daughter, the aspiring New Yorker, should have access to.

I tell myself that it's okay to start skimming them.  Skipping the articles that don't grab my interest.  This is not working either.  Because there are a lot of things in this world that I don't know a thing about.  More often than not, I run across something that does grab my interest there.  Often in a piece that I would not ordinarily force myself to read.  At one point I was reading a book review which I found very difficult.  When I complained to my mother about this she said, "Those are the ones that you have to finish.  They do the most for you."  Lo and behold she was right.

With the New Year, I am trying to read current and past issues of the magazine.  I was telling SO about this and he made a comment about how the New Yorker is very dense.  I hadn't thought about this, but it's true. I recently bought an issue of Mental Floss and read it really, really quickly.  Back in the day, I never had a problem zipping through an issue of Entertainment Weekly.  The New Yorker is another animal entirely.

It could be worse.  Many, many years ago my parents got me a subscription to the New York Review of Books.  The NYRB can be pretty damn amazing but I am grateful to have been spared that agony this year.

It's a word eating race and I am really not holding up my end.  But I will press on.