Can appreciation be paused?
Hi everyone. You may have noticed the absence of my name from this site for a few weeks now; thanks for waiting, if you were waiting. I ran into a personal emergency, and got back to things last week. During this time, it was very interesting for me to see how the concept of appreciation exists among people while they may not be in front of each other. Such appreciation simply reappears from the moment communication was established between myself and a few other people.
The question that arises from such an observation could simply focus on whether appreciation really “reappears” or if it simply “resumes” after being paused because of the absence of some direct form of communication. It made me think of a very critical concept and question related to appreciation. Can appreciation be paused and resumed? I’m going to talk interchangeably about two possibilities of appreciation pauses here: one pause is when you go away and others pause their appreciation in the meantime solely because of your absence. The second pause is when you pause appreciation on purpose while someone else is still around you.
Pausing on purpose: Can fake appreciation be paused?
After coming back, I found out that some people who called me their “friend” before simply did not care about communicating or inquiring about things, even when they were directly told by someone else about my position or absence, when before I had done the same for them in other situations and cases. Does a supposed-online contact, who proclaims to be your friend, have an obligation to show any kind of appreciation towards you? In my view, no.
Do selfish immature people that I know, the ones who got spoiled by bad parenthood or bad mentality or maybe both, realize the concept of appreciation during empty times when all they can focus on is to feel better by simply doing things their way? In my view, no, since such people are not leaders nor influencers who will ever change anything in the world: they simply exist to ruin teams, to focus on unimportant goals because they themselves chose those goals and not because of the importance of those goals, and to feel better about their existence by sticking to things for their own selfish interest without being considerate of others. In your view, can appreciation be paused and stopped towards such people until they grow up?
Another example: you tell someone to act more mature in their decisions so that their decision does not hurt you or the team in the long run, and solely as a golden rule of their “tit for tat” mentality that someone starts questioning your actions too or telling you to change things so that they can feel better. Can appreciation for such people be paused?
Allowing the concept and illusion of friendship to affect the possibility of appreciation pauses
When it comes to online-contacts who proclaim to be friends in order to steal and copy blogging and writing ideas, in order to come close to get ideas, motivation, advice, publicity, topics and plugins, I believe such people not only have an obligation to show real appreciation, but that such people have no interest in real appreciation other than to manipulate it for their own sole benefit. Their very existence revolves around fake appreciation that centers on creating an illusion of appreciation. That is the reason I like the idea of using the word “contact” and “no appreciation” compared to “friend” and “appreciation” in situations where we are simply throwing those latter 2 words around without thinking about what we are talking about.
It is better to mean things we say than to say things to create an illusion of intelligence that in reality does not exist in order to fake appreciation. Maybe a lot of my posts need word replacements now to reflect this observation of some other people. How about your previous posts? Do you need to change the word “friend” for many people to “contacts”? If so, would such a change be justified for reasons other than “tit for tat”?
Pausing due to purpose: can appreciation be paused while things are on pause?
Now, the word “resume” and its siblings make the concept of appreciation seem very interesting when applied to it: can appreciation somehow paused so that it could be resumed later? Can I simply stop appreciating you without not appreciating you on purpose, and simply resume that appreciation later without any negative side effects or results? It can be that appreciation gets paused when interaction stops. It could be that the amount and quality of appreciation can somehow cover up the silent times when new appreciation is not being propelled in some direction.
Imagine that you go on a vacation or that you go to a hospital in an emergency, and during this time there is no communication towards you from my site. When you get back, I start appreciating you. Is that new appreciation, is that the old appreciating simply being resumed, or is that something completely different? What if I act immature, and want you to do things simply because I cannot easily let go off things? Would that affect any and all appreciation that existed before your going away?
Can the nature of an appreciation pause define its nature and validity?
I met a guy last week who showed a lot of appreciation in person after a long time of no communication. It was as if our last interaction many years ago had simply resumed, and the appreciation from his side seemed very sincere. However, for reasons I will not dive into, his appreciation revolved around his mentality of having an “MBA in English” from one university and “an MSBA” from another university; I know the MBA in English at that one university does not exist, and that the MSBA from the other university is a crappy degree that simply exists in order to allow students from that university to feel better. Sure, I feel happy knowing that someone who is probably a loser in many ways feels better for having a crappy degree from a crappy university, since their happiness may be genuine, even if it exists solely to cover up their feeling of inferiority.
Now, regarding their appreciation towards me that revolves around them having two degrees, one of which I realize does not exist and the other one I know is not worthy of anything even to them: Does that mean that their new appreciation towards me, after the long time of no communication, is fake compared to the appreciation shown to me long time ago, when they appreciated me based on themselves being humans instead of being someone with graduate degrees? If one believes that such new appreciation is not worthy, then it means appreciation did not resume in such a case and thus appreciation was simply reborn with a different face and purpose.
Do you think appreciation can be paused?
These are some of the things to consider when wondering how and why appreciation reappears after disappearing for a long time. Can appreciation be paused? Am I not showing, nor getting any appreciation during times when I am not posting on this site? What do you think? Does any good or bad appreciation shown through this site cover up for the silent times when I am not around?
Of course, this question is aimed at people who already can realize such a trend to apply to their lives, and thus this question does not exist to explain in detail and introduce this concept to those who do not know what it means. I’m hoping the brief hints and introduction above tells you what the concept is about. Please let me know if you have any questions about it.
Thanks for reading, again.
Other RA Project Articles

16. Jan, 2008 





Author Info
I have an MSBA… but it’s not like I use it much
It’s good to see you back on the project Bes. I think that appreciation can be “resumed” so to speak.
For example, I’m not in constant contact with readers here or elsewhere. Nor am I in constant contact with family and friends. However, when receiving an e-mail or call, I do try to be friendly/polite and let them know if I’m too busy to give them adequate attention.
I can go months without speaking to somebody, but I don’t consider the relationship null and void. If I communicate with that person after an extended period of time, I can just pick up where I left off. Not everyone can do that, so I understand a lot of your points in this post.
Yes, I remember you have an MSBA.
Thanks for the welcome back Ronald, and thanks for keeping in touch also.
The point about you not speaking for months and picking up things where they left off is important to know: some people do not pick off from where they leave, and some people simply start fresh without realizing it. Some people simply act distant.
Reacting in a similar fashion with the readers can be very easy, although the reaction of getting close after some time span has passed by can be hard for most people in my view, specially online. Many people treat their readers like commodities that are expandable, and thus when those people see some old readers back, they simply feel obligated to show attention because of how that old reader helped the person in question either through commenting or other channels. Of course, the more popular a blog becomes, the less obligated or concerned many bloggers feel about each reader and commentor as an individual, individually.
Thanks again Ronaldd.