Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Manipulation 103: interviews and presentations


I have a new theory of interviewing -- try not to answer any question without asking first one clarifying question. I think it's good for the interviewee because it gives you something to focus on apart from trying to gauge your own performance. It makes you think of the interview as more of a conversation, so there is less performance anxiety. It's effect on the interviewer is to force her to commit to actually wanting to know the answer, rather than asking a question and zoning out during your response. And it evens the power dynamic a little bit because the interviewer is not the only one asking the questions. It puts the interviewer on a small version of the defensive, because they're forced to explain what they're asking and question why they are asking the question in the first place. (I have a similar dynamic with one of my more distant relatives, a silly woman who has confessed to other relatives that I make her nervous because when she asks me a question, I pause and answer it carefully and in the meantime she has rethought whether it was important enough to have troubled me with it.) When I feel like I have to talk nonstop, I will frequently get out of breath and consequently get a tremor in my voice. Breaking up the interview in this way would give you a chance to catch your breath while you collect your thoughts.


I haven't had the chance to use this tactic in an interview yet, but I have had the chance to use it in some recent presentations to midsized audiences. Within the first few minutes, I try to ask the crowd a question and ask for a show of hands or field specific responses if people volunteer. It immediately cuts the tension and instead of a dynamic where people feel like they can sit passively and judge my performance, I am requiring them to engage with me. If anything, they focus their judging efforts and attention on their own selves with worries that I may ask them to engage in a way that they will not be prepared for or that they might mishandle.

During the question and answer sessions I follow any questions with my own clarifying questions. I pin them down. I don't give people the chance to retort "that's not what I asked," or "you've misunderstood me." Once I am clear as to what exactly they're asking, I say things like, "that's an interesting question." I want to seem friendly but I also want to establish the power dynamic that I feel worthy and competent to assess the merits of their questions -- a teacher/student dynamic. They are happy for the praise, happy that I have granted them my approval, and so are less inclined to speak ill of me later.

Of course these tactics can't make something if there's not anything there, but they have been very useful in helping me perform my best, particularly in situations in which people are likely to underestimate me.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Choosing the better part

I have been thinking a lot about the meaning of life. I recently had a conversation with a friend who is going through something of a midlife crisis. He was dissatisfied with his expat job so he quit and moved to an expensive city with a renowned singles scene. He had saved up a ton of money over the years of working long hours and thought that the key to his life's happiness was now to focus on his personal life. Old habits die hard, though, and once he got to the city, he quickly became lonely and depressed. He was even less happy than he was at his old job. Why?

It's an interesting sort of puzzle and I found myself being drawn in to try to figure it out myself. My first thought was that his old job gave him a sense of purpose. The more I talked to him, though, the more I thought it must be that his old job gave him a sense of status and superiority -- he complains about not flying first class anymore, not having preferred "status" with his airline and bank, and he talks all of the time about his degrees from very fancy schools, as if that should be all that is expected of him in life.

The other day he announced to me that he had solved the riddle of his unhappiness with the help of his therapist -- he "needs" to make a lot of money. Not to spend the money, he assured me (he lives a Spartan existence), but for the security. He assured me that his need wasn't any different than these people who feel like they need to spend a lot of money (why the need to legitimize?) and all he wanted was to have enough money so that he could pay people for life's necessities rather than relying on informal social contracts.

"Do you think there's also a sense of validation that you are worth a large sum of money?" I asked. "Or do you think there is some value in social contracts apart from the services or gifts you might receive? Do you think it might be better to just believe that people can be lovely and so it is no great shame that you are just the same as everyone else?"

He's a smart guy and a sceptic (not at all spiritual) so I focused on studies that have shown that one of the factors most correlated with life satisfaction are the number and quality of interpersonal relationships. He replied he is not most people, though, arguing that he is an introvert and that it is "really hard" for him to interact with people and consequently he doesn't like to. Then we talked for a bit about the difference between being true to the person he is day to day versus where he wants to end up in 20 years. Specifically, if he does become rich enough to replace social contracts with monetary ones, there will be less of an incentive to make or maintain relationships. Gradually that will become more and more true until he will (all the while acting completely rationally regarding his day to day preferences) end up 20 years from now with few connections to the human race. And is that where he wants to be?

I was reminded of a scripture that I never understood until recently. Jesus comes over to Martha's house for a meal. Mary, her sister, sits at his feet and is instructed by him until Martha complains, asking him to admonish Mary to help her with the preparations. Jesus rebukes her and says "one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." The implication is that Mary's focus is properly on the eternities while Martha is focused on preparing a meal that will soon be forgotten.

I used to not be able to think of my future except in terms of probabilities. I think this is true of a lot of teenagers, but it took me a long time to outgrow it -- not really until my 30s. Studying music helped -- having to plan ahead and invest in myself for a long term payout. I learned a lot more when I picked up gardening during an extended period of unemployment and self-introspection (basically when I started the blog). I learned that success (at least in my garden) was the product of dozens of small things that I did daily and even if did those things, catastrophe might still strike in the form of a frost or animal interference. Gardening was good for me to internalize both a sense of long term cause and effect and the knowledge that just because I put in the work didn't mean everything would necessarily turn out fine. If things worked out, I was happy. But I also learned to be happy that I had taken the chance, even when I didn't get the results I had hoped for.

I love beets, but I loved that garden more for what it taught me about myself and the world -- that I am like a garden, in a very Candide "we must cultivate our gardens" sort of way. And that I may be tempted to indulge in hundreds of impulses a day, but that I too can choose the better part that will lead to a more lasting life satisfaction. (And still have the immediate satisfaction of feeling like I'm choosing better than most.)

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Sociopath quote: success

The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs, which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, from Hocus Pocus (1990)

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Sociopaths vs. schizoid, etc.

This clever anecdote was send to me by a reader, originally appearing here.
If you really want to know who you are, just ask yourself "Why am I doing this and what do I want out of it?"

If your answer is, "I don't know, does it matter?" you're a schizoid.

If your answer is, "I want to rule the world, or at least a portion of it," you're a psychopath.

If your answer is, "I am scared," you're an avoidant.

If your answer is, "I want attention...I want them to love me," you're a narcissist.

If your answer is different every three hours you're a borderline.

Personality disorders are only confusing when you think in terms of behavior. But any good psychologist knows, all behavior originates from thought. What is the overall theme of your thoughts? Simple.

Friday, January 18, 2013

You are what you eat

I am very impressionable. I am so impressionable that the self that I call mine seems to be no more than a hodgepodge collection of everything I have thought, everything i have experienced, everyone I have been around. I used to be very reckless in my youth with what I did, what I chose, what I thought. I wanted to try everything and everyone, wanted to know what else was out there in the world. Everything I did changed me, though, for better or for worse. I didn't realize it at the time, and didn't really realize the extent of it until relatively recently. That thought has made me more circumspect.

I feel like this must be true of non sociopaths as well, but maybe to a lesser extent. Maybe they just don't acknowledge the inherent fluidity of the self? It's interesting to me to think that my body is made up of everything that I have eaten. There is literally nothing about my body that I haven't ingested at one time or another -- not my brain, not my heart, not my lungs, not my eyes or teeth... it's weird thinking that I am made up of cheeseburgers.

People want to know why sociopaths have a hard time letting go sometimes. Some of it may be the thrill of the hunt, the sting of defeat, or vindictiveness. I think for me it is mainly because everyone that has ever been close to me has become a part of me. Like that Paul Young song, every time they go away, they literally take a piece of me with them.
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