A Glass Half Empty

In a previous post I expressed a frustration with the MakerPlace at the Midland Public Library virtual Maker meetings, and my feeling that they had gotten away from the hardware hacker origins that make a Makerspace interesting and unique (and I view as their raison d’être).

I still think that is somewhat true (that is the MakerPlace virtual Maker Meetings are temporarily on a different track than what one normally expects from a Makerspace), but that my reaction to that is much a reflection of a depressed and generally negative state of mind that caused me to view this a ‘glass half empty’ situation instead of as a chance to ‘go with the flow’ and see what new things I could learn. Part of my reason I didn’t do the ‘glass half full’ thing is that I wasn’t feeling good and therefore being positive felt like I was being disingenuous and ‘cheerleading’ even though I didn’t really believe it was a good thing.

Two things have changed since that post. One is that I am feeling better, and the other is that I made an offer of two presentations with a tech focus, and been accepted. So now I’ve a commitment to fulfill. Ironically, these presentations are not about hardware, although one will include a brief overview of some A.I. algorithms and some ‘mathy’ explanations, although hopefully not to the point of ’losing the audience’.

When it comes to politics, situations like this can quickly go very badly, especially with social media to amplify the negativity. To a large degree I think that is what has in fact happened with the ‘politics of lock-downs and vaccination’, and I believe that it has had a very detrimental effect on how the situation has been handled. Especially when one considers the abusive behavior that frontline health workers have had to face, not even only the public health officials, it’s no wonder there has been a degree of ‘weather-vaning’ on the part of politicians.

People seem to be ready to go to war over a glass half empty. Hopefully, like my MakerPlace situation, folks will overcome that negative feeling, and find a way to do positive things to get a good outcome.

Let’s make this ‘a glass half full’ that becomes ‘a fountain overflowing’.