Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

28 Jun 2014, 10:34 a.m.

Different Views

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2014 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

I just realized that reading blogs about stuff I don't understand -- looking over the shoulders of practitioners as they talk shop -- is a path to legitimate peripheral participation, and maybe that's one reason why I like it. Also I just like (consensually!) eavesdropping on other people's lives.

Examples:

  1. a bike mechanic
  2. a pharma chemist
  3. a scholar and mother

I'm very grateful that the Internet lets me see the perspectives of people who have very different lives from mine.