Sometimes our thoughts crystallize not through direct learning but through looking, comparing and contrasting. Such a moment happened for me after returning from Chicago and checking through Twitter and my emails. I saw a division between the openness, positivity, helpfulness, encouragement, passion of social media, with one or two individuals who, frankly, don’t want to get it.

I was jabbed with a tweet yesterday “all this ‘feelings’ stuff and those that gravitate to it are for those that cannot compete”. Oh dear, how sad. How many ways can one sentence be wrong? Now, of course, this particular tweet account is all about getting a rise out of people, so best not to give too much attention to it. Let’s instead look at the top of human achievement, according to Maslow:

Read through what Maslow said we as humans need and, you know, I think feelings do matter. It’s very much not just about competing for dollars. I do ok financially, I pay my bills, have nice vacations, buy boys toys, but if that’s all it was about I would still be in my corporate commuting day job.

Self-esteem, confidence, respect, morality, creativity. Sounds right to me.

As Terry Starbucker (via the New Radicals) says:

“Wake up kids. We’ve got the dreamers disease”

That’s what I like about blogs and bloggers. We achieve without climbing over each other, we cooperate, we assist, we share. The old guard can keep their cut throat business, I’m sticking to my touchy feely social media stuff because I like it :)