The thing is, we’re encouraged to seek advice. To check in that we’re on the right track, and haven’t checked-out to some other destination or direction on the project. Getting up and going and asking for some objectivity it is a good thing to do, right? Right? Well, yes, I think it is. When you go and ask for it.
What I really don’t want - actually, what I’m pretty sure no-one wants - is what you think when you happen to be passing the desk. When you’ve been picking through the client files on the server and want to run my thoughts past me, so as you can hear yourself explain to me what I think I ought to have seen. Have thought. Had felt.
I’m pretty sure most of use are able to make our own minds up about most things, most of the time. If I want to form a view, I’ll go and do exactly that. The otherwise is groupthink. Social-status updates. Chat, that’s good in its place (as Brian Eno quipped, “gossip is philosophy”), not a small-talk hater here.
What I really don’t care much for is uninvited opinion on stuff that’s close or important to me (but, but, if I’m putting something out there in the public domain, fair play. Come at me. Hypocrisy doesn’t work for me either.) So yes, call me self-regarding. Anti-social. Antagonistic. But that noise is just annoying. When I want some advice I’ll be asking someone who’s opinion I respect (or fear) and check if the timing is good for them.
Mind you, when I catch that 25% of the US population (not hating here, just reporting) under 30 get their news - and so I guess their views - from TikTok, it raises the spectre that “truth is brokered by influencers now” - so maybe I’m actually part of the problem here*.
Seems like all everyone wants now is to be told what to think. Rampant opinion-giving seems to be just the thing everyone needs, indeed scroll-demands, immediately. Feed it to me. I need your influence on this.
* Yep, actually am. I just can’t keep my thoughts to myself. Wonder if it’s possible to influence myself out…
By the by, the image? It’s the The Wimshurst Influence Machine. It creates static and made Victorian’s hair stand on end. How apposite.
