Rocks, Friendships and the Power of Triangulation

There are so many smart, interesting and kind-hearted people out there! They are everywhere and all you need to do is meet them, but how do you meet them? My friend Dahven has a rule. She assumes that even at a drab party, there is someone else there who has a good story. Dahven reminds herself that she will inevitably come away from every party enriched. She only needs to start her treasure hunt to find that person and to hear that story. She tells me that she has never been disappointed.

But some of us struggle with the task of walking up to talk with strangers. Journalist Kio Stark has made a career out of urging people to talk with strangers and her best technique is triangulation. Simply put, rather than walking up to directly talk to a stranger, identify some interest that you might have in common to talk about, such as the stranger’s dog or a book they are reading. Stark’s TED talk is well worth watching (see also, James Hamblin’s video at The Atlantic--a controlled study in triangulation).

I’ve was reminded how powerful triangulation can be. I’ve recently rekindled a childhood passion: rockhounding. Most people love beautiful rocks and they serve well as objects for triangulation. I recently finished tumbling my first batch of rocks from Missouri creeks. Almost without fail, when I show these smooth colorful tumbled rocks to others, this results in smiles and good conversation. I’ve seen it over. I love rocks, other people tend to love rocks, and I really enjoy getting to know new people.  It’s a winning combination. Rocks are powerful catalysts for social interactions. Here are three quick examples.

#1: After posting my photos of tumbled rocks on FB, I was PM’d by a woman named Patti Kemper, who asked for my house address. Why? She explained that she saw how much I enjoyed rocks and she wanted to send me some exotic rocks that she had found near her home in Las Vegas. A few days later a big box of beautiful rocks, including some raw chalcedony. Wow! Why did Patti send these to me? Because she was delighted to see on FB that I was so excited about tumbled rocks. I’ve also seen this at FB rockhounds groups, where members share in each others’ discoveries and offer each other advice how to identify rocks and where to find new rocks.



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Life’s Meaning and Friendship Connections

We are intensely social beings. This is a predicament because it takes a lot of work to maintain social connections and even the strongest of connections can sometimes fail. It’s worth the work and it’s worth the risks, though, because this social predicament offers us our only chance to live a meaningful life.

Many people who are shy or (like me) introverted might be tempted to think that a meaningful life can be sustained by passively observing the world around us. We might be tempted to think that we can retreat into some sort of safe place, somehow living a meaningful life while watching the crazy, beautiful and (sometimes) dangerous social spectacles crisscrossing our space-time at a distance.

But a meaningful life is only possible when we work hard to forge deep vulnerable personal honest connections with others. Life can be meaningful only to the extent that we bravely reach out to others at the risk of failure and rejection.

Our journey is thus a non-stop crisis. The human condition compels us to keep approaching social intersections of danger and opportunity. There is no place to pull over to be neutral. There is no way to fully light up our potential by vicariously living the adventures of others, including the adventures of sports heroes or Hollywood characters. To the extent that we fail to take personal risks of connection, the meaningful life withers. If we had been given instruction manuals at the moment we were born, this would be Lesson One: Maintaining close personal connections with others is a necessity of life, as important as food, water and air. Chapter Two: A Life without close friendships is an emotionally impoverished life. Lesson Three: We will often fail in our attempts to connect with others and when this happen, it will hurt.

Lesson Four is that we can often get up, dust ourselves off and be better and stronger because of failures to connect with others. This “good” type of failure is only possible, however, if we can ridicule and silence voices that tell us to stop taking risks, whether these are voices of other people trying to “help” us or whether we are broadcasting these pernicious voices inside of our own heads.

I’ve been thinking about these things a lot recently. For the past year, I had been in a period of relatively blissful “normal” life, where everything seemed safe and steady, including an ongoing romance. But then a huge wave hit me from behind and everything was instantly upside down. It’s as if I were at a movie theater where the movie screen caught fire and I started thinking: “This incredible CGI makes it look like there is a real fire,” but then I realized it was a real fire. Then the announcer stated: “We’re taking a break from normal life. Good luck to you.”

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The Season for Trying to Step off the Treadmill

My 19-year old daughter Charlotte recently commented: "Time seems to go by faster now than it did when I was in high school." Yes, indeed! And it speeds up more and more, especially if you love what you are doing with your life, and if you treasure your family and friends.

This seems to be the perfect time of year to try to step off that ever-accelerating treadmill in order to live in the moment, to appreciate the many things that went extraordinarily well this year but to also appreciate lessons learned where things didn't go as planned. What better way to kick off this season of contemplation than to spend time with your people and to share stories with each other. That's what many of us are doing tonight, of course. To me, that is the magic of the season. My family's tradition is to celebrate Christmas Eve with a feast of tacos and other Mexican food at my house in South St. Louis. My immediate family includes my 87 year old mother, who lives independently, and her five children (I have four wonderful sisters). My mom would proudly add that she has many grandchildren and also some great-grandchildren. But wow, is time ever flying by . . .



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Art and New Friends in St. Genevieve, Missouri

A few weeks ago, I walked through an art gallery in St. Genevieve. Really beautiful studio run by Leon and Lynn Basler. By the time we walked out, they had invited the two of us to be among the featured artists for their display for the upcoming St. Genevieve Art Show, Dec 7th and 8th. My art is photography. Really cool! Not coincidentally, I've been learning a new photo program for doing HDR: Aurora HDR 2019. It offers layers, blend modes and many other things that weren't on the program I had been using. If you're looking for something to do on Dec 7 and 8th, think about coming down to look at the many art galleries in beautiful St. Genevieve. It's really a special place, so much so that the city is in the process of being designated as a National Historic Park.

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Pseudoinefficacy: We are willing to help one person, but less willing when there are multitudes we cannot help

Compelling 2015 research by Paul Slovic and others shows that we are often likely to help a person in need, but we are much less likely to help that person when our attention is simultaneously directed toward other people that we are unable to help. The fact that there are multitudes in need dampens our willingness to help a person we are most assuredly in a position to help. Here is the summary of the research:

In a great many situations where we are asked to aid persons whose lives are endangered, we are not able to help everyone. What are the emotional and motivational consequences of “not helping all”? In a series of experiments, we demonstrate that negative affect arising from children that could not be helped decreases the warm glow of positive feeling associated with aiding the children who can be helped. This demotivation from the children outside of our reach may be a form of “pseudoinefficacy” that is non-rational. We should not be deterred from helping whomever we can because there are others we are not able to help.

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