Feeding Pigeons in the Park
I was on the phone with Russ, a friend who had started a new blog a few months back. “I see other blogs,” he told me, “where every single post seems to pull dozens of reader comments, but that’s not happening over at my blog. What’s the reason, do you think?”
And I had to laugh because the BullsEye blog is getting about the same kind of response as his. A few people leave comments regularly, another few do it sporadically, and most never say boo.
(Now, I realize I’m writing about you here, so the topic may be cutting a little close to the bone, but stay with me – I do have a point.)
In any given group of people, most folks stay back in the crowd and wait to see what’ll happen next. Only a few individuals in that group are willing to stand up and speak their mind without first seeing what opinions the crowd holds. They don’t wait to check which way the wind is blowing. In practice, those who are willing to speak up are the ones who set the trends that others follow.
So far, there’s nothing wrong with this. After all, if we had one hundred leaders in every group of one hundred people, our society would be VERY different. Makes me laugh just to think about it.
One Tiny Step Forward
But the point is, the kind of people who are willing to step up, just a half an inch forward, and say something, even if it’s only “I disagree” or “that was stupid” or “wow, that inspired me” or anything, truly are rare in the world.
Think about that – forget the fancy theories for a bit and just consider how rare it is on a practical level for most people to put themselves forward even half-an-inch. It’s tempting to assume people are just timid. But I don’t think that’s it. I believe it’s something else entirely. In just a moment, I’ll get back to what that “something else” might be.
On the topic of getting lots of comments, I’m pretty sure it takes a fairly large readership to generate such high comment counts. For example, last month over 8,000 people visited the BullsEye. And those eight thousand visitors left 27 comments. That’s not a lot. Especially considering almost half of them were my answers to others’ comments.
So what’s the deal here? It’s not timidity – I know that. All you have to do is watch morning traffic on the freeway to understand that people can be pretty assertive… even aggressive. But speak up in a public forum? Why not?
The World’s Most Common Motivation
You know what I think it is? I’m convinced it’s just a habit. A habit of omission. Nothing more.
When I lived near the beach in Japan, I’d go down every day and walk for an hour. All kinds of folks spent time at the beach. Some came to walk and exercise, like I did. Others sat along the walls and benches and chatted. And a surprising number came to feed the pigeons. That was fun to watch.
The pigeons quickly learned who brought the food, and as soon as one of the feeders appeared, the birds would flock around them, practically hiding them from view. And they had their favorite foods, too.
They especially loved bread crumbs, broken potato chips, small seeds like sesame, and a few other items.
But they didn’t much like rice – I never figured out why. They also didn’t like popcorn very much. Oh they liked the taste, but the pieces were too big. They had to waste time picking it up, shaking it around and breaking off small chunks that were easy to swallow. So if there was nothing else around, they’d accept the popcorn, but that was way down on their list.
Feeding the Flock
Then one day I saw something that was like a breakthrough moment for me.
It was a religious holiday and the Buddhist temples near the beach were celebrating by giving back to the local people. This is a really popular practice.
Two priests were standing there, facing a crowd of 20 or 30 people, throwing out packets of sweets and snacks, and everybody was scrambling to catch those packages. If any fell in the sand, people lurched after them, trying to get them before somebody else did.
And the unexpected similarity to a flock of pigeons had me doubled over laughing.
Those people – perfectly good, likeable people – were behaving exactly like pigeons, flocking around whoever was willing to throw them something for free. Then, when it was over, they all wandered away, offering as few “thank-you’s” as the pigeons did.
I told Russ that story, and suggested that most people, without ever intending to, just get into the habit of acting like pigeons. And furthermore, I think there’s a logical reason for it.
Training Materials
Most of us spend a great deal of time receiving impersonal entertainment from TVs, Videos, CDs and radios, none of which involve personal connection. They don’t require a thank-you from us.
I mean, when’s the last time you went to a movie, then after the film ended and just before you left, you turned to the screen or to the projection booth and said, “Hey guys, thanks a bunch!” We just don’t do that kind of stuff.
And so when we go to a blog or a website and read something, most of us don’t say squat. Even if it’s something we really loved. We may think to ourselves, “Man, that was great. I loved that post.” But do we say it? Nahhhh… it takes a couple of minutes too long to do that. Besides, it’s kind of corny… uh… isn’t it?
So yes, I really do think we’ve been conditioned to act just like a bunch of pigeons, taking till it’s gone, then turning round and looking for more, more, more.
And it may be this conditioned pigeon training that’s keeping us from putting ourselves forward even half-an-inch, not even enough to say, “Hey I read what you wrote – thanks.”
But the sad part is, as we’re trained to hold back, never putting ourselves forward, never forming more than the minimum relationships with the world around us, we become less and less likely to put ourselves forward in our careers, too, or our personal relationships, or our connections with the Universe itself. We sink deeper and deeper into passively taking, and that’s a slow, comfortable one-way slide to pigeon land… unless we make up our minds to take action and reverse it.
How about it? I’m going to lay it out nice and blunt. Is anybody going to step forward even a quarter-inch out of the flock of pigeons and leave me a ‘HI’? After all, it’s a step in the right direction.
Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles
What a fascinating insight! Especially for a guy who’s decided to make a habit of practicing gratitude for his “gift full of gifts” – his God-given life.
By the way, it’s going to be interesting to see how many comments this post gets!
OK, I’m through being a pigeon!
Charles, I’ve been on your list for a long time and did a really early telesiminar with you. I still use the meditations from the seminar. And I can never thank you enough for turning me on to EFT, which I have used effectively for ending phobias as well as all kinds of physical things.
Your offerings are always thought-provoking and (you’ll like this) I almost always agree with you! Wow!
Thanks for all you do.
THAT WAS VERY INTERESTING, IT ALSO MAKES A LOT OF SINCE. KEEP IT COMING.
Gene – I agree… and you might say I posted this article as an experiment – I was curious too. . .
Sandy – thanks for the feedback. So tell me, what was the main takeaway you got from it?
Judy – aw shucks (digging toe in the dirt). If you liked the early teleseminars, I think you’ll especially like some that I’m planning for the coming months. I’ll be trying new things, pushing the envelope a bit farther than I have in the past. Almost always agree? Thanks for the vote of confidence, but it may also mean I should be pushing that envelope even harder. Thanks for letting me know.
Wow, Charles! What a beautiful, thought-provoking piece! Thank you.
I’m choosing to abandon my habit of omission right this very minute. And know what? Already I feel bigger, more involved, and yes, happy.
I never consciously thought of blog-reading as opportunity to engage in a relationship–however momentary–with the writer. And yet, I gain so much, so often, from my reading. The very least I can do in response is say, “Thanks!”
So thank YOU! What a door-opening article!
Susan, thanks for the feedback – I’m glad to hear you got something from it.
Hey Mr. Burke–
As always, spot on and good food for thought.
And Thank You.
One thing that keeps me from commenting or posting more actively otherwhere
(Hi Susan!) is that it feels like I have to have something to add to the conversation.
I guess you’re right, though. “Thanks, I needed that.” is sometimes just enough.
Continue Rocking.
Hey Charles
When you first mentioned this during our phone conversation, I was wondering where you would go with this. I remember you pausing and saying, “Russ, that just gave me a great idea!” Then you proceeded to tell me about the pigeons in the park, but I have to admit, I didn’t completely catch your concept right away.
Yes, this is a brilliant insight!
But you know what? We are ALL capable of having these brilliant insights. Maggie is constantly ‘amazed’ at how I can turn what she thinks is an ordinary, every day occurrence into a full-blown blog article with a real message. And I’m thinking, “Dude… we ALL have experiences. And we all have our own unique perspectives. Whenever I hear something from another person’s point of view, it EXPANDS MY OWN MIND!”
In defense of our readers, Charles, I’d like to offer up a couple of other observations that I’ve noticed in myself. I’ve got a growing family/friend reunion on FaceBook. I spend a good 20-30 minutes there keeping up with the pulse of my group. That takes TIME.
I have other blogs I frequent. I read. I get ideas. I see those blogs already have 50+ comments. Mine would only get lost in all the noise anyway, so I exit quietly out the back door. On blogs like yours and mine, most of the time I DO leave a message – but that’s ME… I can’t seem to shut up.
Then there are the forums! I write full-blown articles there, too! Again, that takes TIME!
I would guess that for most people, it’s a time issue. When we come to blogs we tend to just want to be entertained and/or informed. All that FaceBook, high-traffic blogs and forum interaction in addition to our ‘real world’ responsibilities has us just tuckered out.
However, I look at my visitor stats and notice that a good percentage are spending an hour or more on my site. People are reading, that’s for sure.
Then again, writing in a vacuum can be a bit disheartening sometimes. I love to know what people think, even if they disagree (as they did on my now infamous ‘hot’ article) LOL
As for the quick, “I really liked this article – keep it up!”… many blog spam filters actually block these! I know other bloggers who remove these ‘quickies’ because they don’t add VALUE to the conversation. So sometimes we bloggers can seem a bit ungrateful as well!
I see BOTH sides of this issue. I’m certain there are many, many more reasons people don’t comment.
Looks like this post got your desired result. That was an interesting experiment.
All the best from Toronto,
Russ
Further to my last post…
I was talking to Maggie at breakfast this morning about leaving comments. Rarely does she ever leave comments, even on my own blog. This is HER perspective:
PRIVACY – most blog comments ask for a name and email address. Maggie is extremely cautious about giving her email for fear of being spammed, regardless of the blog owner’s privacy policy.
TOO MUCH WORK – some blog comments make you jump through too many hoops – register, wait for confirmation email, login… by the time a person gets through all that, they are too ticked off to leave a comment.
Speaking of different perspectives but on a completely different tangent:
We were talking with my little six-year-old step daughter about the possibility of getting a little kitty next year when her older sister goes to live with her dad. The conversation turned to the many responsibilities of pet ownership. One of the things we discussed was veterinarians (vets). Curious, my little one asked, “Russy, what’s a vet?”
I answered, “It’s an animal doctor.”
Ambrosia returned surprised, “You mean it’s not a person?”
It took me a second to realize that she HEARD me say that the animal doctor was… AN ANIMAL!
That’s what we get from watching too much ‘Treehouse’. LOL
But it also proves that we ALL have different perspectives. There is NO END to the many different permutations and spins we can have on any topic.
Bottom line again… your comments add so much value and enrichment to your favorite blogger’s posts. I know I am ALWAYS delighted to get any kind of comment because it means I have an audience with a pulse, and I am stimulating them enough to elicit a response.
I join Charles in encouraging every reader to leave a response if the articles move you, enlighten you, or simply entertain you in some way. It’s why bloggers write!
All the best from Toronto,
Russ
Russ – Yeah, I can identify with Maggie’s concerns. The exact same things cross my mind every time I leave a comment somewhere. That’s what throwaway emails are for, though. Still and all – seven or eight thousand visitors in a typical month, and what I wrote was so weak that only five or ten have any reaction to it at all? Keeps me wondering if my stuff’s too tame, too boring, too ordinary? You can kind of understand what prompts some bloggers to step way out into controversy-land.
Charlie – And thank you… I needed THAT…