I hate being criticized. I fear being criticized. I try to be perfect so I can avoid being criticized. I want everyone to like me and like everything I do. I know that's impossible, but I still want it. As much as I want to build my readership, I'm afraid to look at the comments as they come in. What a relief to see that so far they've all been polite and sometimes complimentary!

I criticize people and things all the time. Of course, I'm sure they deserve criticism and I don't. I also assume that since they're in the wrong they won't be hurt by my criticism. (My warped logic: People who earn my criticism are thick skinned, and I can be thin skinned because I'm perfect.) Even I can see the contradiction here!

William Falk, editor of The Week magazine (Cliff's notes for news; I strongly recommend it) writes about criticism in the current issue. He refers to being younger and "full of the conviction that comes with a little knowledge."

That was me many years ago. An embarrassing memory: When I was in my 20s, I received a solicitation to help feed the starving people in Biafra or a similar place. I wrote across the form, "What they need is birth control" and sent it back without a donation. I wouldn't do that now.

Sunday night, 60 Minutes aired a segment about Plumpynut, a mixture of peanut butter and nutrients that is saving the lives of malnourished children in Africa. This week Adam Carolla talked about it on his radio show, and he sounded just like I did many years ago. He wanted to know why they were spending money on food instead of stopping the people from having so many kids. Does he not realize how much more time and money it would take to change an entire culture in which women don't have any choice about being married at puberty and men feel entitled to have sex without any concern about procreating? Then there's also the desire to have more babies because they know not all of them will survive. I think Carolla is in his 40s, but he's still seeing it in simplistic terms. (I like his show anyway.)

Falk writes that at some point he realized he didn't have to be outraged all the time and that life was not all black and white. "Some of the people I scorned," he says, "were just doing their best in difficult circumstances." He continues that he eventually began to see flaws in himself, too. Again, I did the same, in spite of what I wrote above. He concludes, "It was humbling to step down from the pedestal of purity—but, at the same time, wonderfully liberating. It's exhausting, as well as juvenile, to hold the world to standards you can't meet yourself."

One of the best things about The Week is that it includes excerpts from varying points of views in its articles. For example, its current article about Al Gore's Nobel prize quotes columnists from the National Review Online saying the award is a "debasement" and from The New York Times asking "What is it about Gore that drives right-wingers insane?"

I try to gather as much information as I can before I form an opinion. Like Falk, I've realized over the years that most issues are complex. (Side note: That's one of the biggest differences, if not the main one, between liberals, who acknowledge complexity, and conservatives, who don't. I used to be a Republican, but that's a whole other entry for the future.) Sometimes I am content to not even choose a side on a complex issue. And, as my "bio" says, sometimes I choose a side and later change my opinion when I get new information that affects it.

I hope in this blog to question things more than criticize them because I know I benefit from learning and I hope my readers can learn at the same time. However, I know I will continue criticizing some things because I will be convinced I'm completely right and someone else is completely wrong. (In fact, I'm already planning an entry for the next few days criticizing adults who go trick or treating!) I will try to avoid personal attacks in the process, and I hope my readers will continue to do the same when they correct me.

(Note 1: To me, there's a difference between criticism of someone's actions and personal attacks that don't really have anything to do with the subject. I will try to avoid the latter when I blog. When I set this up, I required moderation of all comments because as queen of the blog I don't have to tolerate hatefulness. This morning I changed the setting to allow comments to be posted immediately without moderation, but I still  intend to remove anything that I consider inexcusably vicious.)

(Note 2: My plug for The Week was unsolicited, and I have no financial interest in recommending it.)