Old Faces

Old Faces
I believe that I can tell a lot about people from their faces. No, not young people, but sometimes children wear their personalities on their faces – the quizzical look, the look of anger or sadness, the look of fear and gloom. But for a personality to really burn it’s way into the flesh takes years, no decades. Then there is no escaping it, the face is always with you. So, be careful.
The old people wandered into the room singly and in small groups. They were wealthy, but not rich. The rich are in different places than this, but they are well off. The faces show so many different things, lives that experienced a lot of hard physical work, faces that show grief and anguish, faces that show arrogance and haughtiness, faces that express mistrust and suspicion coming from countless disappointments. Faces with a fear of being taken advantage of even though their lives have been largely free of criminal attacks.
There sits a man with no chin. His face is a straight line from his bottom lip to his neck. I exaggerate, there is a little bump, and his dewlap has filled in the space that might have once helped shape a chin. But the rest of his face has overcompensated for his lacking chin. It has become assertive, a little aggressive, he “projects” more than seems to fit the situation. Hi sits up, leans forward, and is successful in overcoming this unfortunate part of his countenance. I wonder how much he has paid for this minor facial feature, rather lack of a facial feature. “Chinless”jokes must have racked him from a distance, he must have spent hours looking into mirrors with a side view, trying to find ways to push the little chin that he has forward.
There is another man, in this world of retirees, the men have subjugated their wives to replace the staffs they once had, who is glaring –daring anyone to speak to him. Many are reaching out to form some kind of short term relationship; someone to tell about the wondrous things they have done. The wives huddle to the side and speak of grandchildren, clubs, and shopping. But the men are “oneupping” each other with the exploits of modern life. Companies they have worked for, projects they have done, bumptious in their forcefulness of their tales, many covering a strong recollection of inadequacy, fear and luck, luck who should be given most of the credit for their successes. I don’t see any that I want to get to know. My friend is a seriously addicted, extravert. He starts conversations with people at the drop of a spoon. He may specialize in servers, service workers, and other low level staff, perhaps because they are easy targets, and always responsive. He is nearly as likely to begin a conversation with the president of a company – which he does later in the day. He says things that I could not get away with. “Are you an American?” He can say such things, and get away with them because he is genuinely interested in people, and how they respond to being put on the spot – that and the humor that he interjects into the conversation. (One of his frequent comments to wait staff is “You have a great future in the profession”)
I watch as small groups form and disassemble, as pairings or quartets emerge and dissolve, as people turn away from previous connections to try again with someone else. There are tacit agreements – religion, politics and sex are off limits. Although since it is late October, politics may be permitted as a casual, testing topic. Those who really care have loud flags they hoist at the drop of a key word or name. So it becomes quickly a comparison of where you have been, what you did there, and especially, where you have been that no one else has been. (Antarctica used to be a winner, game stopper, but it is too easy to get to now!) So, since these people travel in the same circles, sometimes in different directions, they share a lot of experiences. But it isn’t wasn’t that a great opportunity! A wonderful site, an opportunity to re-experience a great trip. It becomes, “Ah, but did you get to have lunch with the Pope, or work in the kitchen of the Michelin rated restaurant, or ride an unfixed camel. But it is the way we are, and we wouldn’t be here if we were different.
Sometimes I try to listen, reflect, “active listen” but usually that is a weak opening. Countless times I have left conversations thinking ”I know some rather intimate things about that person, much more than I want to, and they would not be able to identify me in a ‘line-up’” The need, the strong unfilled need to be important, or significant makes it easy to feed people a few lines, a nod and an encouragement to talk, and they forget that you probably don’t care a dot about their small, boring, insignificant lives – their grandchildren, their pets, their trips to nowhere. That’s the power of seeming to be interested. Sometimes I think that I could draw them out, nurture the confidence that is building, they scam them – but that’s not me, fortunately for them!

Blase'

Blasé
We don’t see them very often any more. It was a quite a novelty at first, they were so different from us. Friendly, to a point, but you never felt like they were open and real. To me they always seemed to be guarded and slightly uncomfortable. There weren’t that many of them where we lived, it isn’t the most important place on earth. We do have some schools and research installations here, but nothing of any substantial import.
When they arrived, it was the story of the century. It answered the question about whether we were alone once and for all. We aren’t. But very soon, the novelty wore off and things returned to normal. Steven Hawking was wrong, there really wasn’t any reason to hide our existence – of course we couldn’t any way, the electromagnetic radiation was out there. They were neither hostile nor brilliant. A little ahead of us, but not that much. Oh, we learned a lot, moved our science ahead by a couple of hundred years, answered some stubborn questions, got a better handle on energy, and some medical breakthroughs, but you know how short our attention span is – no one pays any attention to Shuttle launches any more.
So, it’s really no surprise that the excitement wore off. Sure there were press conferences, presidential speeches, banquets, video games, movies and all of the things you would expect. But we are so immune to sustained excitement – novelty wears off so quickly the stimulation so quickly deadened. Now, no one seems to care, at all. Most of them have gone; they seem to be bored with us too. Maybe is they had tentacles, or green scales, or wings it would have been different. But they are so similar to us it’s hard to get excited, it’s hard to really care that much. Almost everyone quickly lost their interest. The news conferences were interfering with regular programs. MNF was actually superseded one time, I mean what kind of values does that represent.
It’s okay with me. Maybe the next group will be more interesting, or their timing will be better. Or they will have better stuff for us. I hope so. Or maybe we won’t be so blasé, not so bored.

Failed Dreams

On a Country Road
Another slides past the window of the car. This was once an antique shop; boarded up now, with weeds growing in the sidewalk and the gravel parking lot. No one wants even the skeleton of the business that is left. At one time, perhaps 20 years ago, this was someone’s dream. This was their way out of a dull and boring existence. They knew about local antiques, and people drove past all the time, big city people who really knew nothing about the local things. They were from “up north” and were looking for something to put in their apartments to tell their friends about over cocktails, something to remind them of their week in the hill country. It seemed like it couldn’t fail.
In the preceding 50 miles, there were a surprising number of failed businesses, just like this but offering something else for sale. Some parts of the country seem to foster them more than others. The deserts have a lot of buildings that once held the highest expectations of someone, their dreams, their egos, and their money. It seemed like a good idea at the time. So much traffic, so many people who really needed what was on offer. In retrospect, it maybe wasn’t the greatest business prospect. But none of the friends were good enough friends to tell the dreamer what they really thought. So, now, the skeleton is still there, no for sale sign is even visible, the last one of those blew away years ago. The most surprising are the stone buildings that must have taken an enormous amount of effort and time and resources to construct. Now derelict and going downhill quickly. The guts, everything but the stone is completely gone.
I’m sad when I see these old businesses, business failures really. But I should be delighted. Think about the excitement, the reality that someone had, the work and money and self they invested. They really thought they could be successful. There are dreams enough for us all still out there.

Confirmation bias

There is a special satisfaction when you slay a dragon. It gives a warm feeling in the center of your chest and a lightness in the pit of your stomach. A pleasant tightness at the edge of your eyes, perhaps it is simply a slight smile, emerges. There is a general tingle and glow that is enormously satisfying. Have I slain a dragon lately? Not in the flesh, but the kind of dragon to which I’m referring is the metaphorical kind, they are not in short supply.
This morning in the NYT Digest, a column by Ross Douthat was published entitled The Partisan Mind – The body scanner debate would have played out very differently if it had occurred during the Bush Administration. Douthat is one of two slightly right of center columnists that the Times employes.
His arguments are interesting - depending on what you believe before you read the column! But of greater interest are the comments that are posted by the readers. One was up so quickly that I wonder if the writer had access to the column before it was published. I recommend the article, but I find the comments to be more interesting.
There is a psychological concept called Confirmation Bias. In essence, it says that when our minds are made up, we tend to reject ideas that are counter to our belief and to accept confirmatory information. There has been some interesting research lately that not only confirms this idea, but provides a physiological basis for it. When we dismiss information that goes against our beliefs, we are reinforced by the release of endorphins into the pleasure centers of our brains. Recall my opening paragraph – that’s all the result of endorphins, and the dragon is a position that is different from our own.
Ref: Michael Scherner, Scientific American ?