HOW TO REMAIN IGNORANT WHILE SEEMING SMART

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HOW TO REMAIN IGNORANT WHILE SEEMING SMART

There’s this little trick I taught myself eons ago. This little trick evolved into a technique, maybe into an art of sorts.

How do I explain it to you? Here goes…

I’ll call this little trick RETAINING MY IGNORANCE IN ORDER TO ENHANCE MY WISDOM, ALL THE WHILE AFFIRMING THE EXISTENCE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE PERSON WITH WHOM I AM CONVERSING.

Come to think of it, this little trick may have its roots in my early career as actor and interviewer.

When I was onstage I learned to freeze in place while other actors delivered their lines. Remaining immobile in effect turned the stage over to the actors so that the audience paid rapt attention to them, not me.

As I gained experience, I learned to do more than freeze while getting ready to say my next lines—I learned to relax and actually listen to what was being said, which added reactive depth and authenticity to what I then said.

Get it?

Later in life, when I interviewed people on air, I used this experience to add intensity to the dialogue. Instead of figuring out what to say next, I took a deep breath during the interviewee’s comments and really listened to what was being said. When I replied spontaneously with my next question or comment, I came across as natural and thoughtful—or something like that.

At least this is what happened in the best of times.

After abandoning acting and broadcasting for an extended and stressfully boring career as a Mad Man, I blocked all these techniques from my mind, believing them to lack relevance in my new life.

After I crashed and burned from the Mad Man life, I found hope and joy in doing what I do now—writing, operating a bookstore, performing and hosting, etc.

Then, I realized that everything I had learned as a very young thespian and announcer turned out to be useful in the shop.

When customers seek help or advice or feedback, I make sure they have my full if brief attention. I listen and react, then try my best to take them seriously and give them a hand in finding what they need.

This makes me feel better about what I do for a living, and it seems to bring great satisfaction to most customers, who seem grateful and even surprised that a shopkeeper is focused and attentive and friendly and helpful.

Results are a bit puzzling. For instance, my behavior in the shop gives people the impression that I am smarter and wiser than I really am. I am not necessarily smarter and wiser, I am just Paying Attention—something many folks are not used to, in this no-eye-contact texting virtual confusion of a world we’re in at the moment.

I guess all I am really doing is trying to treat people the way I wish to be treated. When I leave a shop or eatery or event, I feel really good or really bad, depending on how the people in charge deal with me. As long as I keep this in mind at the shop—asking myself, “How did I just now make this customer feel?”—I can find some small bit of pride in having done what I can do with the limited tools and experience I possess.

Ignorance, it turns out, is blissful. Helpful and attentive ignorance is even more fulfilling.

John Jacques Rousseau (you know, That Guy) once said, “To write a love letter we must begin without knowing what we intend to say, and end without knowing what we have written.”

I think I just did that. I spewed forth some unplanned thoughts about a deeply and lovingly felt subject and they turned into a love letter to my customers, a tutorial to anyone who wants to leave each of life’s encounters with the knowledge that perhaps, just perhaps, someone feels a bit better as a result.

And you and I, at our finest, will not even be certain of what we did to make this happen

 

© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast

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