Feedback

(21/07/08)

I have recently been concerned about one of my friends. He's a really nice guy, a couple of his mates even describe him as the nicest man on earth. He makes a lot of videos & puts them on YouTube & his editing skills are fantastic, but I have been worried that his sense of self-worth rests almost entirely on the feedback he receives on the videos which, in my opinion, is largely bland at the best of times.

I strongly believe that we're all on a journey of self-improvement & that is what life is about. I may be wrong about this. And to me one of the ways to improve is to seek out feedback from others, no matter how painful it may be, and to try & take it objectively & look at how you can improve as a result. Take this blog. I guess my mission statement for it (yes I used to work for a big profit-making organisation, the clues are there if you look for them) is to get my thoughts & emotions out of my head, the purpose of showing them to others is to show people that they're not the only people that think that way (it's still a revelation to me when I realise other people assume they've been going quietly mad too because nobody else admits about feeling a certain way) & it's also a bit of a test bed to see what others think of my writing style. I've been quite honest about the fact that I don't think I'm the next Shakespeare, but I do think I have some important messages to get across.

My concerns about my friend are that I think that the Youtube community he's involved with can be quite sycophantic. I was worried that he was taking his feeling of self-worth from these people, who give very unconstructive feedback such as "loved it, keep up the good work". This subject turned into a debate in the pub last night between three of us, and a friend & I realised that we very much wanted the film-maker to be seeking out constructive feedback from people, yet we didn't do the same about our writing.

So here goes. I would like feedback from anyone who has been reading this blog. I'm looking for whatever feedback you want to give me. I will do my best to read it objectively. It's really important to me. Feel free to leave it on the comments section of the blog or send it to me on facebook or email. I appreciate total & brutal honesty, in fact I may even buy you a drink when I see you to show how much I do appreciate it. Thank you :)