My First 1000 Days: Highlights
1000 days ago, August 10, 2011, I stumbled upon hubski. thenewgreen encouraged me to visit saying it was a cool place. At first glance, I wasn't aware of the discussions. It seemed more like a wall of links to articles primarily about technology. I was curious but didn't get it. I was not a refugee from Reddit or any other web aggregator. Any article (such as those on Reddit or the New York Times) followed by 2000 comments seemed unreadable to me. It was a lonely web.
I posted my blogs from time to time to an audience of robots, some friends, and strangers. If I found a computer-related article of interest, I posted it on hubski. Then sometime early in 2012, I started posting blogs on hubski. My hit count started to climb. There were comments and discussion. Later in 2012, I was added to dvh. Sweet. My web loneliness began to evaporate into internet ether.
dvh was a major highlight of my first 1000 days.
Enjoying people's writing, especially poetry is another highlight. The first #todayswritingprompt was in February 2013. There have been about 20 so far and a lot of great writing. Often the prompts would arise from suggestions from other hubski posts creating a thread of continuity between people and discussions.
I began to think that humans ran and participated in hubski and the Detroit meetup proved it. Another highlight. Soon after I met forwardslash in Vancouver. More humans.
I enjoyed participating in tng's podcasts and various attempts at collaborative poetry and fiction. I love insomniasexx's newsletter.
I must confess that other highlights occurred when hubskiers would pm me with personal problems, saying something like: "I've been reading your thoughts on life and love for the last couple of years, and would like to ask your opinion." Not only did I realize that there were real people out there, but I suspected that I might also be a real person.
Often, I would write hubski with a question and I'd get great answers and support.
I won't go on with highlights. There have been many. I will post my 1000 birthday present to hubski in a separate post. It is all the suggested hubski slogans that I can find, in a more or less readable format. Probably my favourite is adapted from a kleinbl00 post:
Hubski: Pushing the darkness back just a little bit more.
Shit, you got me beat by 8 days! The Detroit meetup was a lot of fun. Certain details to remain open only to those who were there ;) As one of your disciples, I can attest to your sage advice. Hopefully, all the newcomers will continue to learn from us old 'uns that there is a face behind every username.
Two questions: #1: What is an important lesson that I've learned from hubski? I'm not sure I learned this from hubski, but I definitely practised this on hubski A LOT - so it is even more important than merely learning it. Every comment to me, no matter how stupid and offensive it seems at first read, comes from a commentator's experience, reading, or misreading of something I have written. Every time I am hurt or offended or pissed off at someone's response to something I've written, I look for the truth in it - the truth of their experience. If the criticism is of something I've written, I look for how they might see that in my writing. I write back by reinforcing the offensive thing they said, or paraphrasing my understanding of what they said. I agree with them and repeat how they might be right in their interpretation. I then restate my point, if I still believe it. The outcome, almost 100% of the time is that a misunderstanding is clarified. #2: What do I get out of Hubski the most? "Meeting" you and others who challenge and engage and teach me things. I picked up information on many topics that I wouldn't normally know about -- urban planning, the big bang, black holes, white holes, and so on. I began bringing these things up in conversation. My current spousal unit would say, "How do you know that." I'd say, "hubski." It got to the point where he'd say, "Did you read that on hubski? I should join them."
I just think the world of you lil. The fact that I had a hand in you finding Hubski makes me feel a sense of duty fulfilled. You are an integral part of this community and I consider you a good friend. PM to follow.