On the topic of selfishness, generosity and symbiosis

Once again, my dear friend Rebecca Elvy made me think - this time by putting forward the observation that "consuming content is at least as much an act of generosity as creating it. In fact, creating content is somewhat selfish. But it can't be completely selfish, because you share it..."
 After giving it some thought, I guess you could call those who create content selfish, as most creators do it because they live with some inner force that drives them to create the content; they simply have to create it, regardless of whether it is of interest to others or not, in order to satisfy this inner force. But in other ways it is selfless - because creators put their creations out there for us consumers to consume it (sometimes with a price tag, but the consumers accept that the content is much more valuable than what the creator demands to get for it).
But I think the most fruitful way point of view us to creators and consumers as being parts in a symbiotic relationship - at it's best, creators might create their content without having an audience in mind, but still most creators thrive on the feedback from the consumers; the consumers, on the other hand thrive on the content of the creators and offer their feedback in return - thereby creating a feedback loop which makes both creators and consumers better than they would be on their own - for which reason both the creators and the consumers are happy that the other part exists and spends time and energy on keeping the circuit alive. It is mutual inspiration at its best - and both creators and consumers see the other part as being generous, because both parts bring something to their common good. And either part consider herself the selfish one, because she benefits from her counterpart's generosity.
The trick is to seek these fruitful relations - because I recognise that there are other, less fruitful creator-consumer relationships out there, where each part tries to benefit as much as possible from the other part's generosity. The trick is to replace the "what's in it for me"-mindset with that of "I'm in it for you".
(Translated from Noget om egoisme, generøsitet og symbiose)

On the topic of empty calories

Some time ago in a radio broadcast, I heard the Danish term "pædagogsandwich" (in English, it would be something like a "teacher sandwich") in connection to the topic of feedback - on how to deliver a message, which in this context was described as negative, between two positive things; in the same manner as in a sandwich, the meaty part which is to give energy comes between the two pieces of soft, sweet bread. As the slight sneering term suggests, it's not necessarily something that should be covered with positive connotations - because it so easily becomes a mechanical construction, where the person giving the feedback frantically searches for parts to obey this sandwich construction.
Not much later than I had heard about the teacher sandwich, one of my sons returned from scouting to tell about "Grandma's Law" - on how to make evaluations with a set of three good things and then a proposal for improvement. It seems better to me - also because there can easily be found room for further development, so the 3 + 1 thing can be followed more or less strictly.
But the bottom line must be that the feedback works best when both parties, the giving and the receiving one, acknowledge that there are two types of feedback; affirmative (what should be maintained) and developmental (what can be improved) feedback - there is no such thing as positive and negative criticism; and in fact the developmental feedback is the one with the greatest potential to be positive, because it is the feedback one can learn the most from. If I am told in the right way, I get so much more from knowing in which areas I can improve myself, than to knowing where I am "good enough".
(Translated from Noget om tomme kalorier, originally published August 10, 2014)