"Lataa puheaikaa" ... Load/Earn talk time

When I was younger (and I'd like to think also significantly more stupid), I thought I have endless talk time with my fellow beings in my own little universe.  "Of course they would be willing to listen my points of view, my ideas, my complaints, endlessly." It lead me into some serious personal dead-ends.

Sometimes by the end of my Nokia era 2007, I finally started to "understand" that human relationships resemble somehow interestingly prepaid subscriptions. Your "subscription" has to have talk time loaded in order to deliver your points. Talk time can be loaded by good deeds, by really listening, by creating value to others, by performing well. If you run totally out of talk time, then you are probably very close of being completely through with the relationship, be it in an organization or in your personal life. You can talk but the reception is lost.
After understanding this (which is probably self-evident for many) I have learned to keep my eye on my prepaid balances - I am trying to give time for loading, try to really listen, to give back, do good for others. By mastering this, you get more time and also bandwidth.

The same principle works for tones of discussion. It's a thin line between being considered "constructively critical" or just "Nothing good ever comes out" (=negatiivinen, nillittäjä, ilkeä, kateellinen,...) . In order to be considered "constructively critical" you have to load your prepaid with pretty massive amount of results, good deeds, positive views.


Somehow this Ville-Tolle thing reminded me of this thought. To me personally, Ville earns his talk time by being genuine - by revealing his thoughts to a more or less open debate. Simply that has value in here, in the land of open people.
Tolle had a point, I believe. But he/she has totally used his/her talk time for his/her single point. By not giving anything out except his/her obvious dislike for Ville, she/he has turned into another shitty voice in the web. No real difference to any forum with hate against eg group of people. Except style. If I forget the context, I did laugh while reading his/her later stories.

Engineers way of seeing things :)