Let Right Be Right

I thought I'd give a progress report of how I'm doing at bettering myself and my self destructive behaviour.

One of the wake-up calls from my feedback was how disenchanting my tendancy to crap on with long winded stories could be. How it gave the impression I was a know all.

In 'What Got You Here Won't Get You There' which I just lent to a friend so I forget the author Marshall's last name, he talks about the counter intuitive observation that if you put two people in a conversation and ask the participants what they thought of the other it typically breaks down as:

1. The participant who said the least, asking questions about the other to keep the conversation going is often thought of as a 'great guy/girl' by the other.

2. The participant who contributed most of the content (dominated) the conversation, is not thought of as nearly so great.

I never thought about this. Nor would I have thought my tendacy to dominate a conversation was offputting, or even a conversation killer.

I had assumed that an 'intelligent' listener would see the sincerity and thoughtfulness in what I believed and appreciate that I was a thoughtful and sincere person.

Besides, there is right and there is wrong. If I have more insight on a topic a provide more value by speaking up right?

I'm not sure if I'm guilty of 'adding too much value' or 'an obsessive need to be "me"' or whatever, but that I just don't impress people by proving how knowledgable I am on everything and everything. Infact more often than not the contrary is true.

Once enlightened my mind cannot become endarkened again. When I think of my 'smart' friends, many of them never talk about their knowledge unless explicitly asked for an opinion yet everybody knows they are smart. I know they are smart, often really really smart. I do get impressed to see their reasoning minds in action and all. But they don't seem to have the compulsive need to weigh in and settle arguments for other people like I do, with a smug 'you're welcome'.

I also mentioned in my excuses post that I have been taught through high-school debating to sound like I know what I'm talking about even when I don't. Which is just plain dangerous.

So following a depressive funk after recieving the feedback, I intellectualised this counter intuitive gem. Basically I asked myself if their were any situations ever where I would need to prove I knew more.

The only context is where I have an organisational responsibility to speak up and stop somebody from making a costly/dangerous/negligent mistake, say trying to pick a clog out of a food shredder. That's the time to risk sounding like a know all - to save somebodies hand and/or business.

Otherwise my new maxim has become - 'let right, be right' I don't need to be right. I don't even know if I am when it comes to forecasting. But something out there is right, and that's how it (anything) is going to play out. Right doesn't need champions to speak up for it in most situations, (following orders from a tyrant may be the exception) it will speak for itself in due course.

Unless you have an explicit responsibility to make your opinion and the information you are basing it on known, you (I) should just shut up. I find it very difficult, especially when people are talking about one of my pet topics like Japanese culture/history, 90's music or comics.

If you will think of it like a movie, a mystery, say you are watching a piece of shit like 'Mystic River' and the director introduces the mute brother of a kid and it seems suspicious and superfluous to your keen intellect and you yell out 'That's it, the mute kid's the murderer!' even if you turn out to be right, is anybody really going to benefit from your keen insight? The movie is going to play out regardless.

Life is like that. If you came out and called the GFC (somewhere between 11-50 economists managed to worldwide) it wouldn't prevent it from happening. It happened precisely because people weren't listening to any rational arguments for the investment products. You may have a responsibility to make that call for your clients who are paying you for the advice, but everyone else isn't asking you for it, and the net result is probably only going to serve yourself.

What you want to do is inform yourself, and that's something I'm still terrible at yet at least conscious of. Seeking information rather than giving it out. Asking questions and trying to see what people know, to give them a chance to impress me. And most do, usually through their kindness and sencerity.

I've also since having this revelation become more sensative to conversation killers. If you needed a conversation killed and turned into a monologue these are the people to hire. My mother's family are the Conversation assassin professionals, which tells me where I got these skills from, and am guilty of myself, but seeing their Xmas lunch in action was an eye opener with my new perspective. Anytime anyone was talking about anything, somebody be it aunt or uncle would interject, often gracelessly with offering some opinion on what was being said, and too often nothing relevant at all.

I've also seen people that just talk incessantly about themselves. I don't think of them as egotistical or self obsessed either, I just think they are probably unaware (like I was) of the effect they have on a conversation. They see somebody listening, they hear somebody talking and no uncomfortable silences. Bingo! A conversation. It doesn't matter that only one participant is talking, incessently, about themselves.

I smile at the thought that the guilty parties (and probably even myself) upon hearing the above example would probably launch into a long one sided monologue beginning with 'I know exactly what your talking about this guy/girl I know...' while I or you nod along mutely, trying to surpress your laughter.

Thus if in doubt, at the moment I'm just shutting up, saying 'yes' 'mhm' and 'I know' I try to ask questions when I'm on my game but listening is a really thought intensive process, and when I do make a statement I can get on a roll and go back to my old habit.

But at least my current job provides plenty of interruptions and escapes for both speaker and listener so that I can kick myself after fucking up and try and think of a question to throw the conversation back onto them and their lives.

It's hard, but I'm working on it. Most days I fuck up. Let's see how i go.