On 15/08/2013, at 9:23 AM, "JOANNA A." <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> And yet everyone expects everything on the internet to be free, and it doesn't have the same impact...
Damn right I do, you got s problem with that? ;-)
I also expect free medical treatment. And I get it.
The problem is people's expectations (including my own) are too low.
But I really like Carroll's idea that it might be a big mistake to regard meetings as a pain.
> In the late '60s and early '70s activists increasingly started complaining
> about "too many meetings." Perhaps there were, but I suspect the complaint's
> substance was that "the movement" was reaching its outer limits -- that that
> old bugaboo "objective conditions" was taking control, and the objection was
> not to too many meetings but to lack of results from those meetings. After
> all, normal "leisure" is in fact a series of meetings -- only we call them
> "parties," "weddings," "coffee breaks," "nights out with the [boys/girls],
> picnics, Christmas Dinners, and so forth. From (roughly) 1963-68 "meetings"
> were a hoot: they were the best part of life; they were living. And then the
> world began to turn grim. Meetings became a chore, one more factoid damning
> "the left." (Perhaps the best literary expression of this is The Odyssey --
> "meetings" constitute its vision of beatitude (until, for example, Odysseus
> rudely interrupts the daily "meetings" of the suitors). Telemachus calls a
> meeting and obviously everyone enjoys it greatly. Then the Telemachiad
> climaxes in a "meeting" at the palace of Menelaus. Nausicaa with her maids
> doing the laundry.
Of course I didn't enjoy the luxury of a classical education, so the humorous references to Greek folk tales sail mostly over my head, but I think I get the idea.
But its true, meetings should be enjoyable, and if they are done right, they would be. I recall that when I was young, idealistic and, perhaps most importantly, my expectations were higher, meetings were something to be looked forward to.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas