1) Negativity is natural. Rudeness is expected
These are aboth natural parts with interacting with other human beings regardless of the internet. People naturally deal with their emotions by lashing out at others, and politeness in everyday life often obscures that fact that many of us don't really respect one another deep down inside. In many ways, it's better that the pretense of liking one another is dropped so that you can get a view through a window, which reveals a bit of how people really feel. In this way, I don't get bothered by negativity anymore. I don't try to understand it and in fact would feel like the biggest hypocrit if I tried to eliminate it from my writing. Also, some people will honestly just have fun trying to tear you down. For some, it's like solving a rubix cube--how can I put down this critique. For others, it's more just them having a bad day or looking to push off whatever anger your take put them through back on you. As said, I will calmly try to address it. If it can't be addressed, the user in question has come to feel so much anger by me that they've usually blocked me so responding doesn't work anyway, but if not I'll either block them or just move on.
Small note: I've noticed men who fall into the rudeness catagory often will argue to the end of time with you about any point at all, while women will typically say something really cutting and then when you call them on their rudeness they will often claim they weren't intending to be rude even though, really, their cutting words are right there as proof. I'm not sure which one is worse, but this is all the more reason not to take someone like this on.
2) Teaching is the best way towards mastery
Turning things a bit more positive, teaching is honestly the best way to master material. I have a lot of unformed thoughts, but it isn't until I put them to writing that I often find full clarity in them. While there's the stereotype of the stuffy teacher in khakis who can't do and so teaches, I prefer to think of teaching more in terms of being a martial arts master who can't fully call himself a master until he's taught all the lessons he's learned to a pupil so he can then go into the mountains to train once again by himself with more clarity and depth in his lessons. In this way, if you have an understanding of something write about it. It will not only help others, but it will help you take that 35% retention up to around 80% to 90%
3) Read other myTakes for quality not ideas
I read other myTakes not really for their ideas--a lot of which are interesting and things I could never have come up with-- but rather because there's a certain overall quality that many have that encourage me to take more time to bring more quality to my own writing. This can come in the form of more proofreading, more pictures, less blocks of texts, less overall length, etc. People write for many reasons but since I write for communication it's important to me that I see "oh, wow, I stopped reading this my Take here and here is why it got boring for me" because, while I'm not trying to please eveyrone, I do care that my writing is engaging as I expect others writing to be. It's also a good way to stay humble about whatever talent you think you have, because instead of thinking you're God's gift to GirlsAskGuys you realize others are doing great things as well.
4) Props are nice but always ask what are you really writing for?
You can get lost in the positive respect you get from others just as much as you can the negative. Like any online system, I know a lot of you are going on the site again and again to see if you got more comments on your writing. But what did you really write it for? As an expression of creativity? As a means of giving value to others? To make some sort of difference? Don't forget your purpose.
5) Your actions are never noticed when you want them to be, but always when you don't
I like to act completely different when answering questions, which quite frankly contradicts the integrity with which I write myTakes. While it's fun to play around and have one space to be silly, I can't be mad when someone calls me out for acting and saying one thing here and saying one thing somewhere else. Also, while it would be great to have your writing be taken on it's own--when you alienate yourself and get into fights elsewhere on the site it can negatively effect on how your writing is listened to later. I'm not even saying to stop acting however way you want because I think when you say no that's not an acceptable way to act or think or talk that it inhibits your creativity, but just realizes it may have a cost.
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