The art of interpretation

"How are you?"
"Where are you from?"
"What do you do?"

During my socially un-enlightened years, I used to think these questions are so boring. After having hundreds of repetitive conversations like these, I thought: "Why can't people be more creative and ask something more interesting?".

Until one day, many experiences later, it dawned on me: words don't always convey what the speaker wants to express.

For example, I'm sure everyone has read/experience about the interesting fact that, what women say and what they mean are two different things. Here are some humorous examples taken from a website:

- It's your decision = The correct decision should be obvious by now
- Do whatever you want = You are going to pay for this later
- Sure...go ahead = I don't want you to
- I'm not upset = Of course I'm upset, you moron!
- Is my butt fat? = Tell me I'm beautiful

The same principal applies to many human interactions. When someone asks "What do you do?" when you meet for the first time, what they are really saying is: "Tell me something interesting about who you are in ways I can relate to, so that we may connect in some ways."

When you respond to what people are really asking, instead of being boring and repetitive, the conversation takes a different tone and becomes interesting. It's pretty simple right? But I was clueless for years.


When I travelled in India, the question "Where are you from?" quickly became an annoying phrase, because it was the first thing every tout and hawker said when they have their radar locked on you. When they said it, what they really meant was: "Give me a response so that I can continue talking and sell you something."

But when you are sitting in a friendly hostel with fellow travellers, "Where are you from?" becomes just another way of saying: "Tell me something interesting about who you are in ways that I can relate to."
Same words, big difference.


A while ago, a friend was upset because the girl he was seeing liked to play mind games with him. "I know all these games and tricks, and I'm so sick of girls who like to play them." He exclaimed.

That got me thinking, why do girls play games with guys? Isn't it just another form of indirect communication? Isn't it a way of expressing their uncertainty and/or doubt? So when us guys get upset and/or confused by them, doesn't it basically mean that we failed the tests titled "Are you man enough to be with me?" or "Are you sensitive enough to understand my feelings?"


I find it interesting that for some people, the skills to interpret what certain communication really mean seem to come so naturally to them, that they don't even need to think about what they do.

But for those who are more debilitated such as myself, we have to learn them the hard way. It's not easy, because someone who thinks "Why can't people ask more interesting questions?" has very different mindset and beliefs about themselves and others, compared to someone who thinks "I understand where you are coming from, and I can relate to that".
Mindset and beliefs are harder to change than behaviours.

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The phoenix

Only those who possess both confidence and humility are complete.
Confidence without humility becomes egotism. People who are egoistical, are actually more insecure than they wanted you to believe.

Sometimes, humility can only be learnt after one hit rock bottom and stayed there for a while.
Like a phoenix who needs to be burnt to the ashes in order to be reborn, the periods of darkness in one's life are opportunities to cleanse and purify one's soul before the rebirth can take place.

Of course, it's easy to say these from the hindsight. When the fire is burning, when things hurt like hell, you'll likely just want to tell other people to shut up about this phoenix nonsense.

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One of those days

It's one of those days, where reality felt utterly surreal. One of those days, where familiar faces felt unfamiliar. One of those days, when I started writing in my journal, the words from Hamlet's famous soliloquy intertwined with my thoughts. I wondered, how can the words written 400 years ago, still ring true today. Is the human condition the exception to this transient world?

And... it's one of those days, when I flipped open Hamlet aimlessly, the words that stared right at me, were the exact ones that had been circling in my mind.

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Turning Point

"This is nuts." After many attempts, frustration turned into anger and disbelief. What am I doing wrong? How is it possible that, after having completed other much more strenuous activities, I still could not swim freestyle strokes for more than 50 meters? That's just one single bloody lap!

After several practices without getting any improvement, at the brink of giving up, I turned to the basic exercises demonstrated in the Total Immersion video.

There's a reason why I skipped these exercises in the beginning: they looked pretty plain and boring. Instead of swimming, you repeat some very basic movements, like floating in the water, rotating your body, positioning your hands and doing some hand switching.

But once I got into it, it became an amazing experience. The moment I experienced what it meant to turn my body with the least effort, and noticed how it simply glide through the water with ease, time seemed to have stopped for a moment. Frustration was replaced by joy, and now each movement becomes an achievement in and by itself.

There's something very zen-like about it.

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Dreams

I've said this before, I'm a dreamer, I need to dream and know that all things are possible in order to be happy.

Convincing me that my dreams are unrealistic and can never be realised is the surest way to induce a depression in me. Growing up, I felt suffocated by the overwhelming pressure from the outside world, and that's a major reason why I became rather argumentative early on: I needed to protect myself.

There's a reason why Paulo Coelho remained a favourite writer of mine in the past 10 years.

Quote:
"We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don’t, our soul dies".

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/01/03/the-good-fight-3

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