[tlug] Political Stealth Letter from Jim

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

Hey Jim - Yeah, let's bury the hatchet.  I'll stop responding to your 
stuff, please stop responding to mine and please don't send me any more 
letters like this one.

Everyone else - this is the type of thing Jim will send you if you 
criticize him.  It's not pleasant, so it's best to let him rule the list 
with whatever he wants to write and just leave him alone.

Lyle




Lyle,

It's a beautiful spring day here;
a good day to start over;
to see things in positive ways.

First, let's review the present.

You screw up in two ways:

1. Perceiving hostility towards you.

2. Reacting in anger.

You perceive hostility towards you when there is little or none.
How readers incorrectly perceive attitudes in email is discussed here:

  http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70179-0.html?tw=wn_index_2

You need to take the information from that web page to heart.
You have so much trouble with misperceiving nastiness when there
is none, that you should simply cease perceiving nastiness
altogether. Look for benign attitudes in email. This will take
practice. When you perceive nastiness, stop and take a rest.
Get away from the email. When you come back, look for a positive
or benign way to interpret the attitudes in email. If you still
perceive nastiness, repeat the above until you cool off.
This might take days or weeks.

When one replies in anger, one makes mistakes and makes a fool
of oneself. Calmly stick to the technical issues. Drop
everything that ratchets up the rhetoric. When you are not
being attacked, calm replies yield a great conversation.
For the few times that you are attacked, reply calmly, benignly,
patiently. When you are attacked and reply calmly, benignly,
patiently, and yet attacks continue, others will step up to defend
you and the attacks will look silly and will wither.
Reacting calmly is a great way to disarm genuine attackers.
It has worked well for me.

So regardless of whether you are being attacked or not,
reply calmly, benignly, patiently. Be positive.

Actually, this goes far beyond TLUG email.
It applies broadly in one's whole life.

Today is a good day to start over, to look for ways to be
positive. Habits are hard to change, so it will take much
practice. Just look for positive ways to perceive things and
positive ways to react. You will also have failures, but keep
trying. One small change a week is excellent progress.

Keep writing.

Jim