Category — quotes and thoughts

“Studies have shown that 85-90% of what people communicate is not with words.”

MSN, Yahoo messenger, ICQ, AIM and such live chat program seem to be archaic to me thinking you can just communicate through such program just by words. I’ll just ignore emoticon for now, although I’ll just say it here that emoticons are very misleading tools.

What’s the difference between instant messengers and a telegram? Well, even telephone seems to be more sophisticated than instant messengers.
In real life conversation between 2 people, you have words, pitch, gesture, rhythm, physical contact, and even environment at your service. All these tools mean a lot in communication. They can add to the words, help clarify the meaning of what you’re trying to say, or they can misleading you completely from your intended context.

People tend to pay more attention to the 10-15% and ignore the more important 85-90%. Of course, when someone yells at you, who would ever pay attention to what he’s trying to say? You just yell back at him, or sometimes, you stay quiet but you’re madder than hell your ears are ringing. You won’t hear a thing…

What if you don’t have the 85-90% to use? Would the 10-15% go straight to the brain?

I’ve just witnessed a misunderstanding between two friends in chatroom a few days ago. One of them was mad about an incident earlier while the other tried to calm him down. The two were not really close, and their scope of experience didn’t really intersect. The calmer tried to calm the mad down. What he thought was soothing words turned out to be viewed as I-don’t-give-a-damn words to the mad. The mad got madder and left the chatroom immediately.

A friend of mine emailed his boss;

“i’m sure you’re pleased with a lot of projects i’ve done for the company. my question to you is that would you consider giving me a raise?”

Maybe I’m a bit too dramatic. Maybe I watched too many movies, but I could read the email above in so many ways.

INT. BOSS OFFICE. LATE AFTERNOON.

Bob strolls in the oval office and sits in one of the chair in front of Mr. P’s table. Mr. P looks up a little stun.

BOB (relax…a little too relax..thinking marlon brando’s quiet talk)

I’m sure you’re pleased with a lot of projects I’ve done for the company. (raise his finger at Mr. P.)
My question to YOU is that would you consider giving me a raise?

———————————-

That was one way to put it. Without knowing Bob, you could couple the words with the 85% any way you want, and the results would turn out differently.

But well… I know a little bit of Bob. I knew he meant every words just as they were, no two ways about it. ;D

Come up to meet you, Tell you I’m sorry, You don’t know how lovely you are

I had to find you, Tell you I need you, Tell you I set you apart

Tell me your secrets, And ask me your questions, Aww let’s go back to the start

Runnin’ in circles, [sounds like] Comin’ our tails, Heads on the science apart

Nobody said it was easy
It’s such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Aww take me back to the start

I was just guessin’, At numbers and figures, Pullin’ the puzzles apart

Questions of science, Science and progress, Do not speak as loud as my heart

Tell me you love me, Come back to haunt me, Oh when I rush to the start

Runnin’ in circles, [sounds like] Chasin’ our tails, Comin’ back as we are

Nobody said it was easy
Aww It’s such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I’m goin’ back to the start

Scientist by Coldplay

Ever since the resignation of Richard Nixon, a very smart man who got caught abusing his executive power, the GOP has deliberately avoided nominating conspicuously intelligent people for president. Gerald Ford was smarter than he looked, but he was unable to dispel his buffoonish image. Ronald Reagan was famously checked out and ill-informed. George H.W. Bush, though clearly smarter than Dubya, is not exactly imposing in the brains department, and he’s demonstrated almost as much difficulty as his son in formulating a coherent sentence. And George W. Bush? Let’s just say the guy is either mentally lazy, not very bright, or some combination of these two. I’ve never felt it necessary to refine that diagnosis; the term I favor is “functionally dumb.”

from Rush Limbaugh fakes stupidity By Timothy Noah Slate.com

Interesting remarks…and it might be true.
The way I see it is that it takes certain amount of courage to let people view you as a dumb, ill-informed person. May not be courage, I should say it takes patience and self awareness even. What would you get from acting dumb, you might ask? You get publicity, sometimes you get public sympathy, and above all else, you get to be the president of the United States.

an unrelenting huffiness that’s supposed to be cute—is nominally a conservative talk-show host. (The premise of the show is that she’s a dragon-breathing polemicist, but I haven’t heard her espouse anything more controversial than capitalism.

I read it somewhere I don’t even remember now, probably from Slate. The writer was talking about Calista Flockhart in her new shows Brothers and Sisters.

I don’t even watch the show or remotely like Calista Flockhart, but the statement above caught my eyes. Full of big words and good use of objectives?

“Real Musicians have Day Jobs.” is probably my favorite bumber sticker I’ve ever seen.

You can’t really replace Musicians with anything else.

“Real Artists have Day Jobs.” No… That won’t work. If artists have day jobs, they would be a sell out to their peers. They won’t get any respect from their own industry. (I shouldn’t use the word “industry” with “artists” for obvious reason, but…)

Actually, haha, there’s no other right-brained professions I could think of that could replace Musicians. Musicians are specific enough, but not too specific, artsy enough but not too commercial, and easy enough to be ones, but not too easy so that everybody can be one.

I wonder if a painter gets instant satisfaction painting something for himself without showing it to anybody. I know musicians actually get that satisfaction just playing for themself. They get some kind of adrenaline rush or a dose of endorphine while playing it and after they’ve finished the songs.

Musicians play because they want to… simple as that.

In the late ’70s, the king of Bhutan introduced a concept called Gross National Happiness. He says that it is everyone’s patriotic duty to be happy…

Good concept. Happy citizens make a happy country. But “To be happy” is just so vague, so ambiguous. It is so subjective, even more so with a more complicated life in the big city anywhere.

Ask yourself a question, would you?
What is your happiness?
A simple question that might take somebody an hour to come up with an answer.
Whether your answer are having “a lot of money”, “knowledge”, “a happy family”, or “a peaceful life”, they are all good answers.

As long as that particular answer comes from you, not from anybody else.
Nobody can tell you that you have to have a lot of money to be happy. Or you have to start a family to be happy or you have to be a well-known business man to be happy.

Finding what makes you to be happy is analog of finding who you are, but in an easier to digest form… entry level sort of psychology.

So what makes me happy? What is my happiness? … give me an hour please…