Read less, more TV

The greatest power you can have

The greatest power you could have in life comes neither from limitless resources nor top-notch skill levels acquired by your super intelligence. The greatest power you could have in life comes from astute knowledge of those around you – the ability to read people like a book. If you understand the working of a mind, you can control (and deceive) it. We are often blinded by our own narcissism. It is our natural tendency to project our own desires and values on other people, as if they were merely our reflections. Falling to understand the ways they are not like us, we are surprised when their actions collide with our beliefs. We offend and alienate people, then blame them, not our failure to understand them, for what happened.

It is not too hard to read a person. The first thing is to get over the idea that people are impenetrable mysteries and that only knowing some secret tricks, guarded carefully by the intelligent communities (CIA, FBI…), will let you peek into their souls. The reason people seems mysterious is because we learn to hide our true feelings and intentions from an early age. Remember elementary school? We all had that girl or boy we secretly worshipped but never talked to. If we went around showing how we felt, we would make ourselves vulnerable to mockery, and if we always spoke what we think, we would offend a lot of people. So as we grow up, concealing our thoughts becomes our second nature.

This deliberate habit makes the mind reading game challenging but not impossible. Although people consciously struggle to conceal their thoughts, they unconsciously want to reveal themselves. Hiding how we feel in social situations is tiring; being able to freely express ourselves is a relief. We secretly want people to know who we are, even (or especially) our dark side. Even while we struggle to oppress this hidden desire, subconsciously we are always sending out signals that reveal a part of what is going on inside (scientifically proven) – slips of the tongue, an unusual movement like reach for the ears, tones of voice, nervous twitches, a look in the eyes that contradicts our words, , and….. most often: the things we say after a few drinks J.

Night and day, people give off signals that reveal their thoughts and desires. If we do not pick them up, it is simply because we are not paying attention. The reason: we are locked up in our own worlds, listening to our internal dialogue, obsessed with feeding our egos. When we drop the self-interest and see people for who they are, unaffected by our desires, we become more receptive to their signals. It's the ability to let go of our ego, to submerge ourselves in the other person's mind. When you do, you will be surprised at how much you pick up on people when you shut off your incessant interior dialogue. Now you have many pieces of valuable, unfiltered information from which you can put together an accurate picture of the other person. Pay particular attention to the eyes: it requires a lot of efforts to hide the eyes' message about a person's true intention – not many people can lie with their eyes.

You wonder why I talk about this. The reason is I'm having a boring day. I am at a bookstore now. I picked up this book from the shelves two hours ago. I have been skimming it and watching people around me and writing this at the same time. No, I am not buying the book. Also no, I'm not a fan of "Lie to Me".

Hello, friends. I know what you are thinking. Haha.

-k

Chicken..

Life is still the same for me. I still spend most morning in front of a screen. Time still moves forward. I still enjoy writing these silly lines, although I don't do so as often I'd like to or did. Summer is creeping up, foreboding sweat and hot air in Boston oven afternoon. Destiny continues to take direction from the stars. The truth is still remaining unseen; it hopes never to be discovered. Love still inspires and hurts and thrills and heals. Mornings are the worst. The mind seems defenseless, easy prey for both memories and imaginations. What happened. What should've happened. What might happen someday. Your fault, my fault, no one's fault. To relieve the agony, one must get up, empty the bladder, drink the coffee, read VnExpress,, do the ritual animal sacrifice, paint the wall with chicken blood and call the demonic spirit bring you back. Nights are equally bad too. Exhaustion makes the mind vulnerable to again obsessing over would've, should've, could've. The sensible thing is sit alone with a glass of cheap wine and taste the chicken that was senselessly murdered in the morning.

Hello, friends. I trust you are well.

-k

A secret

I once heard a saying that we are only as sick as our secrets. I like how it sounds. Do you? It makes a great bumper sticker. With that in mind, I'd like to reveal one of my deepest and darkest secrets in this post. There were times when a passing of this secret could overwhelmed me with self-loathing. And yet, there were other times when I took pride in it. I got your attention now, didn't I? You probably skipped to see if this is really juicy. Well, no need. The secret is this: I'm not really that smart. There you go, dug up and thrown into the open. Since I was a little kid I knew that there were a lot of people who had more on the brain power than I did. I tried to suppress this awareness, yes I did because I was taught that "we are all unique". I've tried to convince myself that I was special, or I was gifted (hey, I went to a gifted school). But then, one day I learned that with enough bright friends, even a dim dumb can light up a room. I like how it sounds. Do you?

Surrender is a powerful word. It runs against everything he was taught. He was taught to be dominant, to be the best. And after years of doing that, he arrived at the top, the pinnacle, the place where eagles crap. But he was still unhappy, because no matter how hard he fought, winning was an illusion. Then, he thought, what would happen if he just gave up? Maybe life isn't about dominating. So he surrendered and found a happiness he never dreamt of. But then, he met this guy who was even happier. You guess the rest what happened to him.

I went to see the new Pirates. It's good for what it is. The mermaids are the nice touch. We only get to meet one though. The mermaid, whose name is Syrena, with one of those hairstyles that cleverly conceals the dreamy chest, has a way of not coming far enough out of the water. I was also pleasantly amused by the sound of laughter coming from the movie goer next to me.

Hello friends. What are you doing this weekend?

-k

Climbing mountains

Is it strange when we think of life as it is similar to climbing a mountain? Is it even stranger to discover after years of working so hard to reach the top of the mountain, you realize that it's the wrong one. This is what happened to him. Ten years he spent on the wrong mountain. And yet he considered it time well-spent. In retrospect, no one could have told him he was on the wrong pile of dirt. He had to find out himself. This, in the ironic ways life screws with us, makes it a right mountain in some sense. There never was a different mountain for him, because he was not capable to envisioning that different one. So he climbed the mountain he saw until that day when he realized that he had made it to the top: the apex, where eagles crap. And that's when he noticed the mountain he was meant to climb far off in the distance. He also noticed something else… people who is climbing that mountain seem happy. He wants to be happy. So he did the only thing a sane man could do in his circumstance, he sent words to those people telling them that they were in the wrong mountain.

I thought about this during my shower this afternoon after my daily weight lifting (pardon my shameless advertisement). When I was done reflecting, I got out of the shower, toweled off and pondered a new thought: "I have a pretty nice ass".

An important news last week was the replacement of Charlie Sheen on 2.5 Men by Ashton Kutcher. I'm glad that my favorite show is not dead. I'm skeptical about Ashton, he hasn't been in anything good for years, including Demi Moore.

Hello, friends.. I trust you are well. I don't like the weather here today.

-k

Watching movie

I had a great time in Vegas. Bin Laden was shot in the head while I was in the sky. We learned about his demise after our plane landed. May 1^st, 1985 I was born and 26 years later, Osama Bin Laden, the world's biggest jerk is dead. From what I learn via reading better writers than myself, the operation was an example of the very best covert action that only exists in Hollywood where you show up, kill the target then leave. Somehow I felt good. I don't want to feel pleasure about the death of another person, no matter how much he deserved it but apparently I couldn't stop. I was delight and the feeling hasn't gone away entirely.

Watching a movie isn't hard. It's a simple 3-steps process. Turn on the movie, sit on the couch or bed, watch the movie. In the grand scheme of life's activities, it's low on the scale of complexity.

Most of you can handle this process. Many women can't. In the middle of Heat scene between Pacino and De Niro, for instance, she might wonder why Pacino had a spiked haircut in Godfather III. She will laugh trying to visualize you with a spike. She will say, while we are on the subject, that you should start using pomade. You don't know what it is. She will take out the laptop to show you. The next thing you know, Val Kilmer's dead.

You rewind the movie and watch the scene again. She sits silent for twenty seconds, then wonders if De Niro's worst movie was Analyze That or The Fan… That gets her going on the unfortunate career of Wesley Snipes. What happened to him. How amazing he was in Waiting to Exhale and Blade. You told her you never saw Waiting to Exhale and she says "you never SAW that movie?". The next thing you know, Val Kilmer's dead.

Hello, friends. Do you have 5 minutes to waste? If you do, you can spend on this "Inches" speech

-k

More wisdom

Here are some more wisdoms, as I turn 26 today.

From the previous post, although most people are idiots, one sad deduction is that you are one too. Although we can take comfort in the secure knowledge that we are better than the average person (well, nobody ever believes that they are average or below), we should admit that we're not the smartest guy/gal in the room. There will be other people that are less of an idiot than you are.

Some people can't stand smarter people. Some take advantage of them. Be sure that you belong to the later. Suck up to them, since it's them who are going to make your life easier. Specifically, they will make decisions for you, which again is what this game is all about - Avoid making decisions.

Hence, when you find a person who is smarter than you are, go along. From then on, the adult responsibilities on your shoulder largely becomes ones of saying "sound like a good idea, let do it", or "it sounds great, but what about A". The second version is particular attractive because you will either learn something about A when the smart person explains to you why he didn't pick it, or you will seem sharp by pointing out something the smart person hasn't thought of. It's a win-win.

Last one.

There is only one thing that people hate more than being called "an idiot"; that is being called "an idiot" in a self-righteous voice. You can apologize in the former, but you won't really get the chance to make amend in the later; they probably will not listen even when you do a good job.

Most of us think we are better than most people we know. When somebody calls us an idiot, it rubs us hard always. You could be intellectually superior; it's a bad idea if you make it too obvious unless you really intend to provoke someone. However it's understood that everyone needs to release his or her frustrations sometimes. Internet forums that are not related to your daily life are great place to take out your problems at other people. Write insulting posts with a sneer just to get into a good flame once in a while; it will feed your ego. The key is not to crap too close to home.

On another hand, being too polite and subtle often doesn't produce the desired effect. Politeness easily ends up going overdone and thus hiding the problem. Be blunt to nail the point if the point is important, because you can't really depend on people getting your point otherwise. A little humor helps; going extreme and being ridiculous can get your point across without making it painful to the recipient.

I'm going to Vegas for a week. See you soon.

Hello, friends. I hope I helped.

-k