I can't decide whether this really is about troll hugging (which is what it's about in the beginning and at the end), or a shameless plug about Pugs and himself (which fills the middle of the story).
Ah, but one does not need deciding between the two; when you hug someone, you are also fulfilling your own desire to be held. :-)
IMHO, one needs not feel shame at saying one wants to be noticed, understood or remembered; that is what makes us human in the first place, and only by communicating we can "unplug" the inhibitions that prevents useful communication.
I've been out of the blogosphere for two years, and only recently began re-familiarizing myself with the various communities formed by aggregator-forums, so naturally there will be some contextual drifts.
But I do try to form real discussions when I was involved in building the blogosphere, which involves telling part of my life-story, then listening to the other person's life-story so I can understand why they made their comments.
So... jvdh, what is your story that prompted you making that comment? I'd be glad to listen, if you would like to share.
What prompted me in making the comment is that the title suggests your post is about troll hugging. But in describing that whole story, you do some large side-stepping, that in my mind are not related to the subject that you gave the post.
I see. There was another half of my title, though: "My hobby" (a xkcd meme). I was trying to self-analyze why troll hugging has become my favorite pastime, so the sidesteps were mostly about those reflections.
I'll take the Judo/Aikido paragraph as an example, in an attempt to form relations between that self-plugging paragraph and the concept "troll hugging" in your mind.
The Judo meme was first introduced to me by mjd in "Conference Presentation Judo" ( http://perl.plover.com/yak/presentation/ ) -- and because Larry Wall and Damian Conway both practices Aikido, they sometime use those two memes interchangeably.
I was reflecting why I've always refrained from using Judo/Aikido to describe what we've been doing in #perl6.
During writing that blog post, it occurred to me that it's about the destination; Judo/Aikido tries to contain and then throw out incoming attacks by making the attacker lose balance, while what we've been doing is quite the opposite; it aims to restore a conversational, one would even say hermeneutic, balance.
So by writing out that paragraph I feel I understand the "My Hobby" part a bit better, whilst also trying to explain that reflection to people who joined in the aikido/judo meme circle before.
That is how the relation was formed in my mind. Hope it helps!
I see. I apologise for my harsh tone in my first response.
I've been reading too much focused articles, and this stood out.
I missed the reference to the xkcd meme upon first reading (my bad! can't believe I missed that :( ) and upon rereading this does make it a lot more focused.
Haha There is also another technique we practice in Brazilian Jui-Jitsu where you meet the attackers aggression by moving forward to hug him. It's called a "clench" but it looks just like a "hug". The reason you hug him is similiar to western boxing where one boxer hugs to prevent the other boxer from being able to hit him because of the distance. They call Jui-Jitsu the gentle art for a reason I guess :) One interesting fact is that the technique does not work if you are moving backwards, and its important that you are going towards him. There is a leading step kick that is just a feint so that you can get closer hehe.
