In one of the newsletters to which I subscribe the editor mentioned that he's going to start an exercise of writing "what I learned this week," mostly just for his own purposes. Sounded like a great idea to me, but then I had this thought: what if I didn't learn anything this week? That would pretty embarrassing.
However, he pointed out that these do not need to be Earth Shaking Truths, just observations. So here's what I've learned this week (more or less a week anyway):
People are surprisingly hostile sometimes when they leave comments on the internet. I'd observed this before on other people's blogs, but it hadn't happened to me yet. It did the other day in response to one of my posts here, and kind of took me aback. Of course when people over-react it's more a comment on them than on you.
I think I kept my response temperate, but now, thinking it over, I should have stuck to Alexander Woocott's favorite rejoinder when anybody sent him an angry letter. He just wrote back, "You could be right." And went on about his business.
Want to share anything you've learned this week? Feel free to leave a comment. Even a hostile one. After all, you could be right.