I read a lot of social media posts, and they mostly entertain me. Whether they are somehow teaching me something, or basically are trying to make me dumber (or engage their dumbness for money), there is something fun about it. Yes, some people say addicting, but if this is addicting, the Traitors TV show probably needs to come with a warning label that there isn’t an endless supply.

I too attempt to entertain people on social media at times (and here on drsql.link along with the tech stuff). I am not anti-social media, though I would be quite happy with the concept of an anti social social media platform where everyone was just trying to share knowledge and becoming too popular got you banned..

But one of the things that social media can do to you is to make you feel kind of worthless. There are lots of extraordinary people on social media doing interesting, weird, stupid, funny, crazy, wonderful, scary, stuff on there. Sometimes all at once. And many of those people faking a lot of it to make themselves feel better about a hollow existence.

I like to be mildly social and chat about databases and theme parks anytime. While some people get all messed up over people who are impossibly pretty, impossibly athletic, or whatever, my problem is more about being correct.

Being fearless

I saw a post a while back that started out with something like “be like the kid wearing a Batman cape.” The basic thrust was that this pre-teen basically was filled with an abundance of confidence and was basically fearless.

You know what I remember about that kid. That kid was dumb. Really dumb. Without going too deep into details, I will just tell you that too many of my memories are from being that stupid kid that learned that stitches in the area between your nostrils HURTS. (I don’t have a lot of memories from a young age, but that was one of them.

I finally stopped jumping around when I hit my head on a huge rock about 30 years ago.)

I used Apple Intelligence to draw these, and it has gotten a lot better in iOS 27.0. Previously it was pretty terrible but it has a few styles that do not look like AI. I kind of wanted this to look like AI.

My super power is making sure I am right

While it can be quite annoying in my brain at times, no matter how much I know about things like SQL Server, I never feel good just stating it as such. In my mind, being wrong feels like getting hit in the head (nothing feels as bad as the aforementioned nose stitches!)

When I tech edit people’s books, for example, I tend to start a comment about something I know and then go make sure I am right. Even when I am 99% sure I am right, I check.

Like say the writer wrote the SELECT clause is used to return data to a client. I would want to say: “Not quite, the SELECT clause does return data to a client, but it also can send it to another SQL Statement too”

Seems right, but what if the documentation says something similar to what the writer did? What if one of my esteemed blogger friends said something similar to what this person was saying? What if I am wrong? What if SELECT can actually modify data and we are both wrong. What if, what if?

Sure I am right most of the time, I have been doing this stuff for well over 30 years. I learn a lot by checking everything I say and checking it over and over and over. Plus I did have that head injury 30 years ago. Maybe I am still in a hospital bed and this is all a dream.

It is annoying, sure

Look, second-guessing the people around you is pretty much half of life these days. The internet is flooded with garbage, and while AI has accelerated it some, clickbait garbage has been around for many-many years.

It is also truly hard because the world celebrates the confident. The people who know for certain that they know what they are talking about. They make you feel very comfortable that they know everything, and every word they say is the best. They excel because they at least seem they are making progress.

Sometimes it is, most of the time they are basically where last week’s post’s about a broken clock comes from. I will stick to making sure I know what I know before I let you know I know it. Even if it means I will never be CEO of Disney or Microsoft.