Month: May 2012

Not Quite Picasso

You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea. — Pablo Picasso

If blogging were a relationship, we’d be at the point where we know we like each other, but we can’t come up with an excuse to talk. I’ve been thinking of what to say all week. It all sounded boring. So instead I wanted to take a picture (thousand words and all that)… I have no camera.

I’ve been in this situation before. We usually end up meeting on accident and talking about whatever is going on around us. Nothing is really going on right now though. Except I do have theory I came up with today.

Things get good, then boring, then creative.

  • Cameras take clear pictures nowadays, but people prefer filters. Maybe HD pics were cool but they got boring.
  • Picasso was an artist who learned to paint perfect portraits around the time photographs were becoming popular. Realistic paintings were good, but they got boring.
It seems obvious, but it makes me wonder about things that haven’t even gotten good enough to be boring.

If this blog were a real date, I never would have talked about this theory. I know better than that. I would have asked a lot more questions, haha. But I’m already too comfortable. Once my blog and I get past this awkwardness we’ll try to build something meaningful. For now we’ll just think about each other and hardly say anything.

Understanding Reality

Through the picture we see reality, through the word we understand it. — Sven Lidman

I’m randomly sitting next to a soon to be Japanese couple. The guy is doing very well, but I have no idea what he’s saying. All I can see is that he touches her hand, then her knee, then her hand and backs off and talks to her while she’s smiling. They’re both kinda curled up on the coffeeshop couch.

I know that’s way too many details, but they were right next to me. Somehow you just know this dude is almost where he wants to be and she’s not going to fight it. I don’t know how I know this, but I’m sure if you saw it you’d say the same thing. I always believe words make things easier to understand, but I didn’t seem to need them today. I got a good idea just from watching the two.

Who knows what the particular charm was, but lots of different types of people grow on us. Maybe a lot of things work when you’re genuine. People can tell. No matter how you say what you’re saying they’re trying to get an idea of your character or your intentions. If you’re using techniques or doing something because you think you’re supposed to, you’ll seem artificial and then people question your intentions.

I got the feeling that guy was trustworthy by how respectful he seemed, but you can’t always trust your eyes.

People who like to fight

Sometimes I think people who like to fight aren’t used to winning.

I can always tell when someone is really good at something, because they get bored of it. It’s not always true, but it’s true enough. Remember when you first learned to drive? You stopped volunteering to take the wheel after a while.

It probably sounds like I’m judging people with my generalizations, but there’s no way to find the truth without some kind of comparison. I talk to clients everyday, and I’ve learned that once you understand a person you can spend less energy trying to grasp the situation and make more moves toward solving it.

It’s useful to understand situations and how people are thinking. You can tell a person is having relationship problems when they start talking about their relationship. They use words to push their mental questions into the physical world. The same way people try to do math problems on paper, so that they can spread the problem out as a whole and work on it in pieces.

Generalizations are good as long as you don’t use them to put people in boxes. Few people mind being understood. But a lot of people will fight when they feel backed into a corner.

Foolish and stupid

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid. — Epictetus

I’m trying to get the first few blog posts out of my system, but it’s hard to break the ice with yourself. I always start off pretty quiet, but I don’t always end that way. I like writing because when you talk to someone, you can only communicate as much as they can understand. So you might end up in a few different kinds of conversations. You’re speaking to someone who lets you talk, or you let them talk, or you both keep it conversational.

When you write, there’s a chance that someone somewhere knows what you mean. So even though you might feel like an idiot writing to people who probably aren’t listening, it’s possible that feeling foolish and stupid might go to good use.

And even if no one reads, at least your writing gets better.

Discovering what you believe

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. — Gustave Flaubert

The thing about a blog is when you have nothing to say you can write to yourself. One thing that’s always interesting is secrets. I don’t know what this blog is about yet, but I hope to write enough to find out.

We’ve been interviewing candidates for different positions this week. All of them are nervous. Each of them exaggerate and there are probably dozens who didn’t even get to interview. But now that I’m on the interviewer side of the table I noticed I don’t even care if they’re padding their skills. All I care about is if they’re the type of person who can do what they say they can.

It makes you realize all of the times when you want your words to be perfect (e.g. speeches, interviews, dates) and the other person isn’t looking for perfection. They’re looking past the words you’re putting in front of them. They’re trying you on in their minds, the way you put on a coat in a fitting room. And before you’ve even finished talking they think they have a feeling of what it would be like to have you around.