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Timely Interaction
Ian McKenzie
15 January, 2009
Sometimes when I have a particular subject or issue in mind and I sit down to write, the thoughts and the transition of those thoughts into prose comes very easily. Other times it is much more difficult. I think the latter scenario is often referred to as writer’s block. Painters and other artists I believe suffer from the same phenomenon.
This morning I am suffering from “writer’s block”. I do have thoughts that I would like to express in writing, but I have had difficulty getting started. The current title of this article “Timely Interaction” is in effect my fifth choice. On my previous attempts I have typed a title at the top of the page and then started typing the content, but on each occasion I have deleted the lot before finishing the first paragraph.
Here I am onto the third paragraph already …, perhaps those blocked channels are clearing.
My Macquarie dictionary gives as the definition of Interaction, “action on each other, reciprocal action”. Now that definition is of course fairly broad, and the term “interaction” could of course be used in referring to anything from mixing chemicals together to people interacting.
I plan to be more specific in this article. I am going to refer only to “people interaction”. In fact, being even more specific, I am going to concentrate on the interaction between two individuals and discuss the results of some of those interactions. Hopefully I shall be able to exemplify the importance of each person in a relationship to try to understand the needs of the other.
Working for many years as a teacher in a variety of education facilities has no doubt affected the way in which I present information. One of the techniques used by teachers is to work from the general to the more specific. So, let me look first of all at interaction generally between people. That is, any sort of interaction between any people.
Our behaviour, attitudes, values and beliefs are all the result, at least in part, of our life’s experiences to date. All who we come into contact with and therefore interact with will have some sort of influence upon us. It stands to reason that the closer and more frequent that contact becomes the greater will be its influence on the attributes I have mentioned.
We humans are social beings. We interact with others face-to-face in our families and extended families; in our workplaces, schools and colleges; in our local communities and elsewhere when we travel further afield. However, interaction can go way beyond face-to-face interaction. The postal and telephone service have both been with us for many years. Modern technology has facilitated interaction between people over large geographic areas. E-mail; interactive web sites; verbal, photo, video and text messaging using mobile phones and so on, are all readily accessible to many people as well as being relatively inexpensive.
Through interaction with others, relationships are developed. Many of us have partners and or members of our family and or friends with whom we feel very close. Others are not so close, and some are quite distant. We could represent this diagrammatically by drawing a series of concentric circles with ourselves in the middle, and placing everyone else somewhere in one of those concentric circles radiating out from the middle. Now for most of us, life and relationships are constantly changing and various people in those concentric circles will be constantly moving either closer or further away from us. Some may move right out and not have contact with us again and new people that we meet will be constantly finding their place in one of those circles.
I admire people who have a very close relationship with one person and have maintained that closeness for a long period of time. Using my concentric circles analogy, the one in the innermost circle and the person in the nearest concentric circle remain constant. Unfortunately, either I have not developed sufficient skills, and/or I have not met the right people to be able to be able to keep the circle with me in the middle and the next nearest circle having the same name for an extended period of time. I think that around thirteen years is the best that I have been able to manage.
Writing is one way to express one’s thoughts. It is in fact what I am doing right now. Sometimes, business requires that I put pen to paper, or more often these days, fingers to keyboard. I have a business partner who is a competent wordsmith, and generally for important written communication that is intended to be published, I will ask him to proof read first. He does the same with me. Someone else often will see mistakes to which we are blind in our own writing, or perhaps they will suggest a better way of expressing the thoughts being presented.
This proof reading usually does not take very long to complete at all, and it is a process I believe everyone should use if the writing they produce is intended for publication, and if they have access to a proof reader who is reasonably skilled as a wordsmith.
However, the major part of what I have written in recent years is not directly related to the business in which my business partner and I are involved. Most of us have interests and passions which are not necessarily related to the main job that we have. We may even be involved in some part-time business interests which are unrelated to our main occupation. This other writing of mine has included web sites which I have published and newsletters which I have emailed out to registered recipients. It has become a part of my modus operandi to have someone I know and respect just to check what I have written before making it public.
Referring back to my concentric circle analogy, I have had the same person in the innermost circle next to mine for about the last three years. This person has generally been there for me over that period of time, and I have been there for her for mutual support.
Now a part of that support from my point of view has been to proof read some documents, or maybe web pages that I have produced and give me feedback. I had always appreciated this help, and on each occasion it generally took only about five to ten minutes of her time. A frustration of mine always was the delay in asking for help and actually receiving it. Several requests made in recent months have only been responded to only following reminders from me weeks after the original requests were made.
Regardless of what we produce, if that product requires checking, there is a degree of urgency required in our own minds anyway. It is not satisfactory to have someone for whom timely responses are not important to be a part of this checking process.
The obvious solution to my problem is of course to find someone else for these tasks. I did do this on one occasion a year or so ago, and was severely criticized for doing so.
Practical experience has shown me that very often it is the busiest people that have the most time to give. It is essentially none of my business how anyone apart from me spends their time. If a full-time “housewife” chooses to spend a large amount of her time checking email jokes, on E-bay, socialising and having lunch with friends, threading beads and making bracelets, as well as completing house work and gardening, that’s fine with me. But, an excuse that a mere five minutes could not be spared to complete a simple task she had agreed to do because she had too much housework, does not have a great deal of credence.
Do you remember the fable attributed to Aesop about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”? A bored shepherd boy entertained himself by calling out “wolf”. Villagers would run to his rescue only to find the calls were false. One day a wolf actually came and the shepherd boy’s calls were not heeded. The wolf ate the flock and the boy.
Conditioned like the villagers in the fable, I stopped requesting proof reading help, only to be chastised last weekend for publishing an article without it.
I mentioned in the opening paragraphs of this document that I had difficulty choosing a title. One option I considered was “Position Vacant
What is that position?
Well firstly it is an unpaid. That will no doubt narrow the field of applicants.
The position description basically is for someone to at least have, (now or in the future), a little interest in what I do. I have mentioned the word “mutual” elsewhere in this article. It would only be fair of course for this interest in things that are important to the applicant to be reciprocated by me.
I have probably made this writing/reading component sound bigger than Ben-Hur. It is not. It may involve five to ten minutes of time every once in a while. Of course, someone with an interest in writing and a reasonable degree of literacy would be a bonus.
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