Holy crap it's only March 12 and I just finished my first book of the year! Might be a record for me!
For the record it was "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell (it's on the NYT Bestseller list). A decent read about how we all have this amazing supercomputer subconscious that sends us intuitive messages in a silly short amount of time. ("gut feelings"). When do you listen to it? When do you not? Can you get better access to it? What can you do to take advantage of it? What can dilute it's purity? All these questions and more are explored through entertertaining anectodal stories. In the end he basically says that you can put yourself in a position to make better snap judgements if you understand what can get in the way and remove it.
In one of the stories Gladwell introduces us to a social scientist who can predict with 95% accuracy if a couple will stay married by watching a 15 minute videotape of them interacting. We learn that the key is that he has learned to spot the red flags from a couple's interaction that to you and I would go unnoticed because they are so fleeting. Of those red flags he says that the number 1 killer of a relationship is CONTEMPT. The key excerpt : "You would think that criticism would be the worst, because criticism is a global condemnation of a person's character. Yet contempt is qualitatively different from criticism. With criticism I might say to my wife 'You never listen, you are really selfish and insensitive.' Well, she's going to respond defensively to that. That not very good for our problem solving and interaction. But if I speak from a superior plane, that's far more damaging, and contempt is any statement made from a higher level. A lot of time it's an insult: 'You are a bitch. You're scum.' It's trying to put a person on a lower plane than you. It's hierarchical."
So there you go, the problems of the world are solved! Oops! Gotta run, my bitch Ellora finally finished making my breakfast. That ho' is so late with it that it's almost lunch.
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