Decoupling from normal

I don’t remember noticing it, but am more and more aware of this constant theme between my interaction with people and it is especially true of woman. They act as if I am constantly trying to prove myself to them. Whatever I said sounded like boasting to them when I am just stating the simple truth so that I can get some business done. In fact, I believe it is exactly because I’ve recently been locked into this business mode that they get this fake sense of me catering to their whims. Or… it could be that they are so jaded by people who boast all the time that they can no longer take any statement as the simple truth. Of course, there’s always the last and worst possibilities and that is the possibilities that I am such a good liar that I believe my own lies.

I often wonder if people think I am trying to impress them because I do not belong in the “good looking” caste of human. This has been in my mind a lot lately. Mostly because I now sits in the position of power and has to use all that I’ve been through to judge others. I started to notice my own bias towards prettier people when I should be choosing the “bad looking” caste of human to serve me instead.

With pure profit in mind, I begin to see how good these people do their jobs. The difference between them is the difference between me getting refused for a HELOC and getting accepted for a HELOC. Or another way of looking at it, is getting the trust from the person and receiving the market data I need, versus them just patronizing me so they can sell me stuff. The service difference is large enough.

Of course, I only have a small sample of data points in my interactions, but I know that as I expand and flex my muscles, I will get more data point to feed to my insane statistical dog that lives in my brain. Yes, let’s call him DOG. I wonder if deliberately creating a multiple personality to perform certain task has been done before. Must look it up.

4 Responses to "Decoupling from normal"

Jeff says:

January 27, 2012 at 11:35 am

I think something you should consider is the language gap. People may think you’re boasting (or misunderstand you) just because of the words you choose.

For example, saying that you need to find a certain type of person to “serve” you often implies that there is some kind of slavery involved, and that you are a slave-owner, or in a position of such higher authority that you own someone else. If you said something like you’re looking for a person to “be my employee/tenant”, “work for me”, or “work under me” instead, it comes off as a lot less arrogant, even though they may all technically mean that you’re in a position of power.

Another example: I remember you saying that one of your goals is to get “raped” by Scarlett Johansson. I know you were trying to be funny, but you could have said something like “groped” or “naughtily touched” instead. While they all mean that there’s a unwanted sexual advancement involved, the word “rape” tends to imply some kind of terror was involved, has extremely negative connotations (even if it’s used so much in the gaming culture now), and makes you sound way more like a creep.

If you wanted to break it down into an even more basic example, consider someone telling you that a cake you decorated “is ugly” or “looks like shit” vs. “needs some work” or “isn’t the prettiest”. All the phrases may mean that you need to start over and improve your decorating skills, but do you feel like the first two phrases come off as way more harsh or insulting or mean than the last two?

I’m sure you understand, cause I know that in Chinese there are certain ways of putting things that sound much nicer than others, but you probably haven’t developed the same sensitivity to those subtleties in English yet. And I’ve learned that those subtleties are VERY important when you’re trying to deal with other people.

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1. Peter says:
  
  January 28, 2012 at 2:43 am
  
  Yes. I am starting to see more and more of this as a problem as I expand my vocabulary in English. I wouldn’t attribute all of it to a limit of vocabulary though. I think the Chinese… Asian language in general are more outrageous and has less sensitivity. It’s hard for me, as a native speaker of Mandarin to discover the exact reason or grammatical rule that makes it so. The blogging is the unchecked version of my thinking and venting, so I’d say the few things you mentioned are as a result of boasting and my own need to feel superior.
  
  The biggest surprise to me is that I am only able begin to see this now because I actually see some people who are more extreme than me on this. It’s something that I have to debate how to curtail it as it is critical to my ability to properly evaluate an investment. The boasting offends people and in so doing forces them to reveal the things I need to judge.
  
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Jeff says:

January 28, 2012 at 12:54 pm

I don’t know about Mandarin, but there are tons of ways of saying the same thing in Cantonese, some much nicer or more poetical than others. In the Bruce Lee movie, Way of the Dragon, he needs to go to the bathroom, so in Cantonese he literally asks where the “shit box” is. I only realized how vulgar and low-class that was when I watched the movie again as an older person. At a restaurant in Hong Kong I asked for the “bathroom” instead, and it turns out even this is too crude for some Chinese people, and they ask where the “sink” is.

You bring up a good point about forcing others to reveal what you need to judge. I was watching Breaking Bad recently, and the brother-in-law of the main character is a real crude asshole. I thought to myself that I hate and like this guy at the same time. I hate him cause he’s so insensitive and unclassy, but at the same time you know exactly what he’s thinking. Everyone else on the show (like most people in the real world) holds back or minces their words or lies when they talk, and this guy is the only one you can always get a real honest opinion from, and I respect that. Everyone needs a person like that in their lives. But at the same time, I think it’s a useful skill to be able to turn on and off (instead of curtailing), because I’d say that there are more situations that require tact in life than brutal honesty.

I think the hard part about making distinctions between words or expressions is that there is no grammatical rule for these things. It’s all just memorization basically, and paying attention to the subtle differences in various contexts. Saying “I want to fuck you” is very different from “I want to have sex with you” is very different from “I want to make love to you”, even though they all technically mean the same thing, but they don’t teach you those kinds of subtleties in school.

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1. Peter says:
  
  January 29, 2012 at 12:24 am
  
  I have to say, although the better words do exist to describe things in Mandarin, they are not part of the every day vocabulary when I was living there. Therefore my education is from a more rural part of the country. Which makes sense since my family tree was that of farmers until my generation. It was after I left that the “modernization” began when the new president pushed for the creation of the high tech industry. This theory is consistent when I compare myself to my cousin who work as a stewardess. She is everything but crude when it comes to the usage of words.
  
  Compared to HK, you guys have the British influence for a lot longer, so it only stands to reason that you are more versed in the subtleties. People still die randomly and very often in my dad’s generation, so surviving and communicating intention clearly is more of a priority… that is, when it comes to belittling people. Taiwanese are also known for their epic beating-around-the-bush when it comes to expressing what they want. I am not sure why. Part of the relic of the Japanese rule maybe.
  
  On the rest, there is currently an interesting back and forth between DHH of 37 signal and Curebit. I actually prefer that DHH called Curebit scumbag for copying their website, instead of hiding behind walls of PR. I think it comes back to people’s style of business. I don’t think I will be able to turn mine on and off just like that. I think doing so requires me to find a way to immediately disconnect my feelings and as you probably already know. Men on average can guess it 70% of the time. With woman it’s around 85% to 90%.
  
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