
> When speaking with people I generally seek to communicate with empathy and humor.

Trying as hard as I can to understand where they're coming from makes me an active listener. Adding gentle touches of humor or, at least, making sure to laugh signals to the people I'm talking to that this is not serious, we're relaxed. I don't think we stop [learning through play][learningthroughplay] just because we're "grown up".

When teaching or mentoring adults, my goal is to enforce a particular relationship: not one of a superior teacher instructing an inferior student, but of two equals exploring a common passion.

[learningthroughplay]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_through_play


Empathy and Humor


> In case of conflict, consider users over authors over specifiers over theoretical purity.

I'm *mostly* sure the "conflict" in this principle is a conflict of product design. Not sure about the wording yet, or if the meaning is clear.


Priority of Constituencies


> Nothing beats plain text for longevity, clarity, or portability.

Everything can edit it, everything can parse it, everything can read it. Improving technology
addresses its accessibility issues, its remixability and addressability (quoting a piece of text is easier than reliably linking to a specific span of a video somewhere on the Internet) are solved problems, and it's easier to produce than any other medium.


Supremacy of Text


> The Buddha taught that when we experience something painful — a physical illness, or the news that someone we love has died, or witnessing suffering all around us — it’s as if the world has shot an arrow into us. It hurts! That pain is totally normal, and it’s fine to acknowledge it. In fact, it’s good to acknowledge it, to let ourselves simply be with the experience of pain.
>
> But often, what we then do is shoot a second arrow into ourselves. That second arrow is any thought we use to spin up a “story” around our pain, as a way of resisting simply being with the experience of pain. This can manifest in many different ways.
>
> It can take the form of shame: “I’m such a weak person, to be crying out like this!” Or anger: “How dare the doctors not save my loved one’s life! They’re so incompetent!” Or ruminating: “If only I’d nudged my loved one to take this or that extra precaution, maybe they wouldn’t have died.” Or catastrophizing: “I’m going to die, too!” Or guilt: “I don’t deserve to live while other people are dying.”
>
> We’ve all got our second arrow of choice. Whichever one you incline toward, the key thing to bear in mind is that it’s self-inflicted, which is to say, it’s optional. It might not seem that way, because it comes upon you so quickly that it seems automatic, but the Buddhist teaching insists this is a second arrow we shoot into ourselves. And doing so is what causes us suffering. As many Buddhist mindfulness teachers like to say: Suffering = Pain x Resistance.

via https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/5/1/21242047/coronavirus-pandemic-guilt-buddhism


The Second Arrow


> Words mean things.

Shouldn't be arguable, yet somehow...

If words didn't matter, then it wouldn't be called "tax relief" or a "death tax". If words didn't
matter, you'd use the pronouns someone prefers. If words didn't matter, advertising wouldn't be a
thing. Yet, in all those cases, someone has chosen the particular words they are using.

They're communicating something.

How someone frames an issue that they're speaking or writing about tells you a lot about what they
are thinking, where they're coming from.


#principle