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A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People
- bix6 1y ago“Having more people say, “We just want to make sure you can do your magic,” is what the world needs.“ Amen to that! I’ve found early enthusiasm hard to come by. It really seems to pick up once others are onboard. But the initial 1-2 people make all the difference.
- conception 1y agoThis is a trick for event planning btw. Put up a “hey anyone wanna go to x?” Crickets. Quietly one on one find two or three people and then say “hey the four of us are doing x anyone else want in?” works a lot better. Most people want to know something is gonna succeed and avoid the risk of failure.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoThis is true. I have a fairly senior presence, in an organization that I participate in, and my voice often carries a bit of extra weight (just like me). I have found that opening my mouth, early in a silent meeting, will often “break the ice,” and get things flowing. I don’t have to say anything particularly earth-shattering. Just the talking, is all that is necessary.
- rfl890 1y agoThought this was the Swiss Miss (hot chocolate powder) website for a second
- dkh 1y agoYou can be a fan of that too if you want
- pixelatedindex 1y agoMe too! I was like, what a weird timeline - wonder what a hot chocolate company leadership has to say in these “interesting” times. Good read though, thanks to OP for sharing!
- HanClinto 1y agoThis is so needed. This was a very encouraging article. "Being a fan is all about bringing the enthusiasm. It’s being a champion of possibility. It’s believing in someone. And it’s contagious. When you’re around someone who is super excited about something, it washes over you. It feels good. You can’t help but want to bring the enthusiasm, too." Stands in contrast to the Hemingway quote: "Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors." It feels socially safe, easy, and destructive to be a critic. I'd rather be a fan.
- pjc50 1y agoYes, but .. there is no worse critic than a scorned fan. There's a lot of fandoms all around the world, and while they're mostly harmless fun the edges can get weird and dangerous. Or when fandoms collide.
- HanClinto 1y agoNot entirely sure what you mean. Care to expound? Are you talking about people who act out on their fandom by criticizing others? "Oh I'm a fan of X, therefore I'm a vocal critic of Y". I agree that such things are toxic -- fandom doesn't need to be a polemic. I want to cultivate the kind of fandom that builds up without feeling a need to tear down others.
- lukan 1y agoI rather think he or she means gamers for example, who send out death threats, because the developers introduced a new thing they don't like.
- bombcar 1y agoThey're referring to "anti fans". You see it with online personalities especially; the most rabid fans (often parasocial, think online streaming) are the ones who will become the biggest detractors or anti fans. Most people are "oh that's fun to watch ok" and then when they don't like it anymore, they get bored and forget about it entirely. The anti-fans continue to follow it, but rabidly hate it. Think Syndrome from Incredibles. He's always been the biggest fan.
- felixarba 1y agoThis was wonderful. The choice to be a fan is within us all.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- svelle 1y agoI had a manager and mentor who was a fan of me. It felt amazing having someone who is actually rooting for you. Him cheering me on and giving me constructive feedback and building me up in a way no one did before that has fundamentally changed my professional and private personality, hopefully in a good way.
- pmkary 1y agoI had too, and it was the only reason I was with that company.
- VP2262 1y agoThis sort of situation doesn't occur often, at least in my experience, but is so good when it does.
- heresie-dabord 1y agoAlways be a mentor as if your own life and community depend on it. Because they do.
- patcon 1y agoThis woman founded Creative Mornings, which has been one of my most well-respected and beloved quasi-centralised organizations (I tend to have a bias for loving humane decentralized/horizontal orgs/movements, and Creative Mornings struck a delightful balance between order and chaos)
- lamp_book 1y agoVery glad to see an active chapter near me - sounds awesome and I plan on checking it out.
- flanked-evergl 1y agoWhat we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether. (quoted)
- nathan_compton 1y agoThis seems like Chesterton to me. Good writer, but I take exception to his world view. We should simply doubt that which is warranted to doubt and be confident in that which warrants confidence. If modern people doubt truths more than people used to, perhaps its because those so-called truths aren't so obvious as some people would have you believe. "But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether." This just fundamentally misunderstands what aims are. They can neither be doubted or correct. I can doubt empirically, or epistemologically, but I can't doubt that I want to eat a doughnut or that I want to be healthy or that I want a world with less cruelty in it. It's a waste of time and energy to doubt these things, although I can try to line up all my desires and figure out how they stack up with one another when I try to make plans, the efficacy of which is in the realm of the believable. I can look at other people's actions, try to determine their desires, and decide whether to assist them or interfere with them or fight them, but when I do this its not a cosmic battle about truths. Its just two people acting out on their desires in a shared world.
- 1y ago
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI've always been a fan of enthusiasm. I find many people react badly to it, though; especially in tech. We have a lot of curmudgeons.
- fullshark 1y agoWe've become jaded by phony enthusiasm or people hijacking it for their own purposes. I agree it's bad, but this industry does seem to run on the enthusiasm of naive 20-40 year olds, the end result of that is many jaded 40+ year old curmudgeons.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoWhat I have encountered, is a bit different. There’s a fetching shade of gray, to my well-coiffed pompadour, and I find many younger folks are almost immediately hostile, before I’ve even had a chance to give them a reason to be. Speaking only for myself, I am very enthusiastic about all kinds of things, and devote a great deal of effort towards helping folks out. There’s reasons for that, which is a story for another time. Suffice it to say that I’ve seen darker times, and that can add a lot of shine, to what others take for granted. That said, I’ve also seen quite a bit of life, and have learned where a lot of the claymores are planted, so some of that “helping folks out,” is mentioning things like “Are you sure you want to pet that rattling snake?”.
- layer8 1y agoSometimes that comes with most of the things you were enthusiastic for ending up far from fulfilling their promise.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- spyrefused 1y agoThey often seem to me to be two sides of the same coin: fanaticism becomes curmudgeonly with what does not coincide with your fanaticism.
- MrMcCall 1y ago[dead]
- PaulHoule 1y agoI think the best thing I get out of social media such as Mastodon and Bluesky is finding people who get enthusiastic about me -- when somebody discovers my profile and then I see they read everything I've posted in the last month and they favorite 20% of it, I know I have a fan. I know those folks exist on HN but HNers are more reserved and I only find out about them when they stand up for me against the haters.
- bookofjoe 1y agoI stand with Houle
- ForOldHack 1y agoI am a fan of both of you, and now a have to find his writing. The simple act of voicing the true recognition of brilliance. I am going to ...
- bicepjai 1y agoI love the take on fandom, this is how I would want it. While this article portrays fandom as a pure, innocent and positive force, my experience shows it can have a darker side. In places like South India, fandom often evolves: fandom becomes factions, factions become gangs, gangs become political groups, and political groups become dynasties or kingdoms. This cycle limits leadership diversity and negatively impact governance and society. IMHO fandom isn’t always innocent; it can wield significant social and political influence, for better or worse. Note: written with gpt4o
- neilv 1y ago> Note: written with gpt4o Good points, but I hope you had your own thoughts, and wrote your own words. And that this tacked on at the end was a joke.
- kretaceous 1y agoThese are two very different things here, I think. You're talking about celebrity and franchise fandom which is parasocial and exists because they are actively influencing you to become their fan. They're already famous or have made it. What the article talks about is much more grounded – being excited about other people you know and believing in them. This "fandom" doesn't necessarily originate from admiration of achievements but from sincere belief. You're becoming a fan while they're just being themselves.
- bookofjoe 1y agoLinked article above broken for me; this one works: https://creativemornings.com/blog/a-love-letter-to-the-people-who-believe-in-people https://creativemornings.com/blog/a-love-letter-to-the-peopl...
- gavin_gee 1y agoso wholesome. what a great day to have found this blog.
- curtisszmania 1y ago[dead]
- badmonster 1y agoWhat a beautiful tribute to the power of enthusiasm and belief in others
- ForOldHack 1y agoAnd the literal fountain of acknowledgment.
- Havoc 1y agoAlso, people that don't have an adversarial bone in their body. They just want everyone to be happy and succeed. A lot of people reckon that applies to them, but the real deal is pretty scarce in my experience. Always find people like that inspiring.
- aerhardt 1y agoI like people like that too, but surely the world and more narrowly the human experience also benefit from having people that are competitive or even disagreeable?
- dfxm12 1y agoMostly, yes, but I think at its core, the world benefits from honesty more than out right agreeable- or disagreeableness. We should speak up when we feel the need to agree or disagree, but we shouldn't play devil's advocate for the sake of it.
- sethammons 1y agoWe absolutely should play devil's advocate. It is the attempt to think about a situation from a different angle and usually is understood to be such. Not an attack; a shake up to see if the structure stands to opposition.
- dfxm12 1y agoThat's a purpose beyond "for the sake of it"...
- hackable_sand 1y agoYou can be competitive and supportive of your enemies.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI am not competitive. That’s a deliberate stance, and comes as a result of my life experiences (long story, get your hanky). In order to “win,” someone else needs to “lose.” That’s not something that I am personally comfortable with, but I totally understand that it’s not reasonable to expect others, to have the same attitude. I’m also quite capable of preventing others from treating my attitude as “weakness,” and trying to make me the “loser.” Kindness is not weakness.
- pbsladek 1y agoShared with my team. Lovely read.
- jdthedisciple 1y agoReminds me of the Pygmalion effect [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect
- VP2262 1y agoYou can do a lot with a little enthusiasm, way to go Swiss Miss :)
- ForOldHack 1y agoI am a fan.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hackernoops 1y agoWhich people? It matters.