Okay, there's this post going around about Sheryl Sandberg declaring the informal greeting of 'How are you?' as an insensitive question. She then tells everyone what to do instead. The post starts out:

Most of us ask one go-to question when we exchange pleasantries with friends, coworkers, and peers:

"How are you?"

The question may seem harmless, but it tends to lead to one socially acceptable answer:

"I'm fine."

The problem is that "I'm fine" often is not the truth. And if you ask this question of someone who is dealing with a lot in their personal life, it may come across as insensitive.

And that last paragraph describes the actual problem. The problem is not that people are asking, "How are you?" The problem is that Sandberg is incapable of telling the truth when asked the question. She isn't the only person who defaults to "I'm fine" or "I'm good" or the grammatically incorrect, "I'm well." The default answer of "I'm fine" is fine because normally the people asking, "How are you?" don't really care how you are. They are giving a greeting, and expecting "I'm fine" as the greeting's response. Her whole argument is saying, "Hi!" as a response to "Hello" is socially insensitive. It's not, it's a socially-learned call and response behaviour.

There are people who ask, "How are you?" and they want to know how you are doing. Those are the people you respond with how you are actually doing, the ones who you have earned your trust, the ones you can be vulnerable with and know they are interested in your answer. Everyone else gets the "I'm fine" response and that's fine.

So, Sandberg was in a bad place because her husband died. She was hurting. That's normal and a socially acceptable response. Telling the world the socially acceptable response of "I'm fine" to a generic greeting is insensitive is a stupid, overly-pc response to the world from the lens of her hurt.

Am I victim-blaming by suggesting Sandberg suck it up and STFU already about this? I don't think so, given she's the one telling other women to suck it up and STFU about injustices in tech world. She should grow a pair, as she told the rest of us to do.

A London-based startup is working on AR-integrated banner ads. B------ is working with automotive brands to launch a banner ad that shows the image of the inside of the car that can be engaged with.

JFC no. We spend our whole lives these days bombarded by someone trying to f---ing sell us something. How about having a space that isn't commercialized?

I would so not want a floating image in front of my face when I'm driving, even driving virtually.

Okay, I'm miffed.

I'm annoyed, bordering on angry, actually. Not really any REAL reason to be, but I am.

See, I was a huge Kickstarter fan. Like over 700 projects backed huge Kickstarter fan. At one point, I was the 57th most prolific backer at Kickstarter.

And then they refused a project of a friend of mine. Said project had one reward in particular that was specifically for me, so that I could commemorate my 700th backed project with a reward from her. And Kickstarter refused to host the project. Well, 100% fuck that.

I pretty much only back project when people personally contact me with an obviously non-form email.

And THEN they come out with this Superbacker moniker for people who have backed a LOT of projects like "OVER TWO HUNDRED PROJECTS."

Guess who doesn't have said Superbacker status?

Right.

This Girl.

Double fuck that.

So, THEN I find out that another friend had a kickstarter project, and despite backing two of his previous projects on the site, I wasn't notified of this next project.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Kickstarter.

Are you TRYING to lose people on the site? Because you're doing a good fucking job at making sure the people who loved your site hate it now.

See?

I am pissed now.

I've been reading a lot of Aurelius as of late. A few friends have commented, "Stop with the Stoicism already," to which I've started smiling, nodding my head, noting that said person doesn't want to hear about these things, which is fine, and moving on. I'm struggling with a lot of changes as of late, and need a way to make sense of some of them and the future in front of me. I'm finding that reading and pondering practical philosophies are helping me. Talking them through with friends helps me, too.

One of the Daily Stoic emails had the Greene quote:

"Stop wishing for something else to happen, for a different fate. That is to live a false life.”

Often the wishing halts the doing. Simply visualizing a better state distracts us from taking the necessary steps to addressing our current fate.

It made me chuckle a bit. How easy a life of wishing can be. A life of doing, however, is one worth living.