Lately i've been thinking about charisma. As I pop my neck with my hands, I think about how people acquire such a thing. I desire this sort of "charm", and have been devising ways to acquire it. First off, I've been talking to people that i've never talked to, face-to-face, and so far it has been working. The first time of the two i practiced this was with a girl who was just sitting across from me, doing her astronomy. I decided I wanted to strike up a conversation since i have already been in astronomy class, but the problem was that I didn't have anything to say to her. So, as I did my math, thinking about what to say to her relating to astronomy, the usual awkward silence and etiquette that two people who know not of one another ensued. Finally, I decided to say something about Pedicino. Jon Pedicino, the astronomy teacher, is a very interesting guy who goes out of his way to create fun stories that educate at the same time. As I came up to the bat, looking her in the eyes and uttering syllables, I realized I didn't exactly know what to say to her about Pedicino (actually i asked her what her opinion of him was with a very awkward sentence). After she responded with the expected response of enjoying his lectures, I realized I didn't have anything else to throw out there! And so a very uncomfortable silence, with eyes locking on one another ensued. My cheeks reddened really bad in embarrassment(in fact, they had started reddening when said the first syllable of my not-well-planned sentence), and i thought she thought i was trying to flirt with her and was looking dorky. However, an external, unplanned variable came to the rescue: a classmate of mine in Meteorology (me and her are taking meteorology). I didn't know she was in my class, but she energized the conversation by talking to me and getting advice about Pedicino and his tests (since she's never had Pedicino as a teacher before). I came out looking knowledgeable AND discovering TWO people in one conversation! Me and her ended up talking about the search for jobs and life in general.
Before anyone screams foul at me due to me being dedicated to a single aisuru, I should say that i'm only trying to build up a large group of friends, fast, and nothing more. I'm completely happy with the love of my life and am not pursuing anyone else, relationship-wise (although she may pursue other people, which is fine with me). I've never been able to really warm up quickly to people, as i used to always just sit back and watch people interact with others, learning more and more about them. If i found someone's behavior/intellectual ability satisfiable, I would s-l-o-w-l-y try to interject myself into their life. this is because of the aforementioned "I don't know what to ask this person" problem. I simply don't know what to say to people to get conversations rolling, and so the slow interjecting technique became the technique that I employed during the Jeremiah-era, when it was all important to me to find only certain individuals who were going to propel me higher in life. I was looking for people who were strong-willed, intelligent and powerful. I was not looking for people with noticeable social or intellectual flaws, as moving around to different parts of the U.S. necessitated that i find only the friends that were going to count in my life. All other people were insignificant (I spent less time analyzing them to figure out what conversations to strike up).
But times have changed. Everybody has flaws, me being more flawed than most in certain respects. I am fine with this. In addition, while keeping only those people that count intellectually (and are in a position of power) has a lot of benefits that help you to build yourself up intellectually and keep a mindset of acquiring power, I found later in life that I was endeavoring my mad scheme of the best-and-brightest so that i can propel myself.... where? I have nowhere to go. No new intellectual level to ascend to (there is no set defined level, and after a certain amount, additional knowledge turns into trivia). I know that I have achieved an intellectual level that will allow me to do anything I want to do if I try, and my body has the capacity to be one of the strongest if i so desire, but where do i want to go? Suddenly all that acquired power and intellectual ability becomes useless; only meaningful in that it adds a little spicing to your vocabulary or knowledge, which attracts other intelligent people people and deters others. This is not to say that I don't have dreams, which i have many, but that there was absolutely no reason to brefriend and continue the tediuos chore of keeping in touch with all these people. I can achieve all my dreams without them (though i still keep in touch with most of them since i have built a bond with them), and, while i was getting an overdose on knowledge, i was getting underdosed on other aspects of life. Aspects that people who are not so smart as these "knowledgeable" people knew and could teach me.
I like to think that everyone I know is a teacher of some sort, and i try to analyze everything they do.
A question that perpetually gnaws on me is this: Should I continue to smarten up and begin to strengthen myself up in order to not waste the potential that is there? It doesn't matter in the long run. However, I like to grow. And so, I continue to learn. (I haven't really tried to physically strengthen myself in quite a while. I will eventually, however. I love the feeling of pushing yourself to the limit). I ask myself this from time to time, just to make sure that I remember why I'm compelling myself to grow.
Anyway, I was lucky that someone rescued me. I could've experienced a disaster, but i'm glad that my voice travels so well that others can hear me. I learned some lessons from this conversation.
I have future plans for learning how to talk on the fly and, overall, be confident in myself when socially interacting. I don't want to get used to just talking to people, but having charisma. It takes practice.
The other part of the plan for confidence acquisition is to talk to managers at businesses i applied at. Ever since I started working at WinCo, i have been (honestly) very afraid of talking to people of high power, and tried not to talk to them. But I want people to see my face, know my name, have my phone number handy so that, when they flip through applications, they will remember who I am and interview me first. So far I am succeeding by just betting myself that, if something that is ~50/50 likely to happen as it is to not happen happens, then i will go talk to whomever. (It's been such that whatever i bet myself on happening happens. So i've talked to everyone, and i'm glad i did)
In closing for the night, I'd just like to say that I have been up really late tonight and so a tired DurDur makes for a sloppy blog post. I will probably modify this post tomorrow, but at least the rough ideas are in print.
After reading so many of my really old articles that i wrote years ago and have not looked at again until tonight, I feel like I need to give a big thank you to Paul (PuKa) Chamberlain, who has been with me during some really rough times, times that could've been close to the worst point of my life but were minimized thanks to his powerful abilities. Thank you, St. Paul (I'll tell the story about why he's a saint in my eyes later)
I think i'm going to go memorize the lyrics to "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and i feel fine)" tomorrow. Good night.
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