Watcher Ep 7

[Juliano Nichols]

Ifirst realized I was not the only writer who had a restraining critic who lived inside me and sapped the juice from green inspirations when I was leafing through Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" a few years ago. Ironically, it was my "inner critic" who had sent me to Freud. I was writing a novel, and my heroine was in the middle of a dream, and then I lost faith in my own invention and rushed to "an authority" to check whether she could have such a dream. In the chapter on dream interpretation, I cam upon the following passage that has helped me free myself, in some measure, from my critic and has led to many pleasant and interesting exchanges with other writers.

Freud quotes Schiller, who is writing a letter to a friend. The friend complains of his lack of creative power. Schiller replies with an allegory. He says it is not good if the intellect examines too closely the ideas pouring in at the gates. "In isolation, an idea may be quite insignificant, and venturesome in the extreme, but it may acquire importance from an idea which follows it. . . . In the case of a creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude. You are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and passing madness which is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer. . . . You reject too soon and discriminate too severely."

So that's what I had: a Watcher at the Gates. I decided to get to know him better. I discussed him with other writers, who told me some of the quirks and habits of their Watchers, each of whom was as individual as his host, and all of whom seemed passionately dedicated to one goal: rejecting too soon and discriminating too severely.

It is amazing the lengths a Watcher will go to keep you from pursuing the flow of your imagination. Watchers are notorious pencil sharpeners, ribbon changers, plant waterers, home repairers and abhorrers of messy rooms or messy pages. They are compulsive looker-uppers. They are superstitious scaredy-cats. They cultivate self-important eccentricities they think are suitable for "writers." And they'd rather die (and kill your inspiration with them) than risk making a fool of themselves.

My Watcher has a wasteful penchant for 20 pound bond paper above and below the carbon of the first draft. "What's the good of writing out a whole page," he whispers begrudgingly, "if you just have to write it over again later? Get it perfect the first time!" My Watcher adores stopping in the middle of a morning's work to drive down to the library to check on the name of a flower or a World War II battle or a line of metaphysical poetry. "You can't possibly go on till you've got this right!" he admonishes. I go and get the car keys.

Another Watcher makes his owner pin his finished pages to a clothesline and read them through binoculars "to see how they look from a distance." Countless other Watchers demand "bribes" for taking the day off: lethal doses of caffeine, alcoholic doses of Scotch or vodka or wine.

Look for situations when he's likely to be off-guard. Write too fast for him in an unexpected place, at an unexpected time. (Virginia Woolf captured the "diamonds in the dust heap" by writing at a "rapid haphazard gallop" in her diary.) Write when very tired. Write in purple ink on the back of a Master Charge statement. Write whatever comes into your mind while the kettle is boiling and make the steam whistle your deadline. (Deadlines are a great way to outdistance the Watcher.)

Disguise what your are writing. If your Watcher refuses to let you get on with your story or novel, write a "letter" instead, telling your "correspondent" what you are going to write in your story or chapter. Dash off a "review" of your own unfinished opus. It will stand up like a bully to your Watcher the next time he throws obstacles in your path. If you write yourself a good one.

Get to know your Watcher. He's yours. Do a drawing of him (or her). Pin it to the wall of your study and turn it gently to the wall when necessary. Let your Watcher feel needed. Watchers are excellent critics after inspiration has been captured; they are dependable, sharp-eyed readers of things already set down. Keep your Watcher in shape and he'll have less time to keep you from shaping. If he's really ruining your whole working day, sit down, as Jung did with his personal demons, and write him a letter. "Dear Watcher," I wrote, "What is it you're so afraid I'll do?" Then I held his pen for him, and he replied instantly with a candor that has kept me from truly despising him.

We have a user that is somehow getting added as a watcher on issues. I don't see anything in the history to indicate he is being added manually. We don't have any automation or post-function transition that would add him as a watcher as he's nowhere assigned to issues or any of our user custom field.

I am currently facing an issue with regards to a particular user being automatically selected as a watcher for issues in different projects (approx: 30 projects and 55K issues in which he is set as a watcher), without him being a reporter/assignee nor committing any actions as per the history within the issues. There is no specific pattern for this behaviour.

Greetings all,

For this post, I am seeking advice on how to go about troubleshooting watcher configurations. I have 2 different use cases that I am seeking to use watcher for and so far I have run in to a few challenges that I am not sure how to deal with. My trouble is not with the syntax of the watcher config. I am able to review documentation and solve those issues so please do not focus on the syntax in the following examples.

The goal of this watch is to look for at least X occurrences of a certain log entry and then generate a PDF of a specific dashboard to send via email. I have this configuration working for a different data source so I know it is possible. I have received 0 email from this watcher config despite the execution states showing OK or Firing. This is NOT the intended result, just to be clear.

The email action stats success, so it has been delivered successfully to the SMTP server. Can you use a debugging SMTP server like maildev to check if that email is received? Do you have insight into that mailserver and can debug the issue further there?

Local, state, and federal government websites often end in .gov. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania government websites and email systems use "pennsylvania.gov" or "pa.gov" at the end of the address. Before sharing sensitive or personal information, make sure you're on an official state website.

When a poll watcher is not serving in the election district for which the poll watcher was appointed, they may serve in any other election district in the same county in which the poll watcher is a qualified registered elector.

While the Judge of Elections at the polling place may not deter or interfere with a duly appointed watcher who is exercising their privileges as a watcher, the Judge of Elections is obligated to remove a watcher who is engaging in activities that are prohibited, including those referenced here.

The Judge of Elections has a duty to maintain order and ensure that the rules are being followed at the polling place. A Judge of Elections may call upon a constable, deputy constable, police officer, or other peace officer to aid in maintaining order.

County election officials will notify the candidate, party, or political body whom the representative represents if the individual is asked to leave a pre-canvassing or canvassing meeting for engaging in prohibited activities. The candidate, party, or political body will have an opportunity to replace the removed representative.

Poll watchers and authorized representatives have no legal right to observe or be present at county election offices, satellite offices, or designated ballot return sites, except to vote their own ballot or to perform personal tasks expressly permitted by the Election Code.

After I send an offer to a watcher on my send offer list the item is then removed from my send offer list. So the question is whether a watcher can remove an item from their watch list after declining the first modest offer and then place the item anew on the their watch list and then perhaps can possibly receive a later offer sent to all watchers?

I ask this has I have a widget that I just listed yesterday and I sent a watcher an admittedly modest offer as the item has not even been listed over a single weekend. But I would like to include that watcher on a later more discounted offer if the item has not sold in a few weeks. So if the potential buyer removes the item from their watch list and then places it back on anew will that watcher show up again and be included in any future offer sent to all watchers?

EBAY decides which items you can "send offer" to so even if customer removes this item from their "watch list" and then adds it back to watch list later on (there is no guarantee that EBAY will select this item to allow offers).

I am not too sure about that. I just checked a full page of listed items and every item that shows a watcher also shows I have sent an offer for that listing. I have even had send offer options on an item listed at $3.99. (I send out a 5% offer just to remove the item from my list as most buyers only rarely clean up their watch list.) My experience is that every item with a watcher gets placed on the send offer list. I could be wrong, but that is my experience.

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