A strange game.
The only winning move is not to play.
How about a nice game of chess?
The Gervais Principle II: Posturetalk, Powertalk, Babytalk and Gametalk
31–33 of 33 posts
Re: The Gervais Principle II: Posturetalk, Powertalk, Babytalk and Gametalk
#32I was deeply upset by this on an emotional level, mostly because for all of my life, I have not had an intuitive hold of this kind of communication. Consequently, I have been operating on an entirely separate plane, making it difficult to relate to and understand other people. I would truly appreciate advice from someone who understands my situation. I am not interested in sympathy.
Get out more. Pick a hobby that requires some kind of interaction - the drama class is a fine example - and then commit yourself to it for at least a year.
You don't need to "relate", or "understand" other people. You just need to recognize and develop an appreciation for their point of view, even if it doesn't make sense to you.
The best way to do that is to immerse yourself in it. If "people" were a new programming language that you needed to learn, how much would you dedicate to learning it? If it were a language that you would be required to use for the rest of your life, how much would you give to it?
It won't be easy, and it won't come all at once. I assure you, as someone who has gone through all of this, that it is totally worthwhile. Professionally and personally.
Re: The Gervais Principle II: Posturetalk, Powertalk, Babytalk and Gametalk
#33It is very good that Venkat(author) is introducing all these words and giving them solid definitions. It brings conversation to this new plane because we now have these words in our vocabulary. Great job, worth a careful read.
Dealing in paradigms this way is definitely a higher skill. Creating this much vocabulary, with this much subtlety is very difficult. You are automatically eliminating random access. All this vocabulary is a huge overhead, you need to make it worthwhile.
Compare this to what someone like Seth Godin (who, I actually like). He creates one word per book.
If you are writing books or blogs or other things that people read by choice, you are very limited in how much you can do here. It's like adding equations to a pop-science book. Formal courses (EG at universities) can force you to understand new vocab (or equations) and build on that knowledge. The problem is that this means they don't need to be sparing.
Venkat doesn't have that kind of privilege. The only way he can make you do hard things is by making it pay.
Worth a careful read is one hell of a compliment.