THIS IS ALL ABOUT ME FOR A CHANGE AND IT'S ABOUT TIME

Blog number 350 **** 01 December 2009

Okay, this all started when I began reading a book called, "Eating the Dinosaur." The author, an interviewer by the name of Walter Kiran, tries to understand why people answer questions posed to them by interviewers even though there is no obvious benefit for them to do so, and in fact many pitfalls to their reputation abound in answering interviewer's questions for publication either in print or film.

"So why do they do it?" he asks.

He gives six reasons why people might answer questions about themselves when they are under no obligation to do so, and then he dismisses all six motives using pretty good reasons. The motive he dwells on as most likely, is that ordinarily nobody listens to people. He says good interviewers are those that are interested in what the interviewee is saying. This experience of finally being listened to encourages people to continue talking.

The one reason people answer questions about themselves he doesn't mention and the one I find most likely, is that people see themselves as the most interesting thing on the planet. "Me and mine" as the saying goes. My experiences, my ideas, my beliefs. Let's talk about those, OK? Great!

So I guess what this new book did to me was to pique an interest in interviewing and being interviewed. I get to interview myself this time. The results follow.

I went back to visit my folks when I was in my forties One early morning I saw my dad playing solitaire on the kitchen table. At first glance it looked like an ordinary solitaire game, but then I noticed that he would place the cards in ways that seemed to make no sense at all. I knew from knowing him, that he wanted me to ask him what he was doing. But I was afraid to. I didn't want to hear his answer.

My dad would very, very seldom answer any of my questions in a serious way. His most common answer if I asked what something was for, would be, "Cat's fur to make kitten britches." I hated hearing that.

Many years ago two of my friends confessed to me behavior of their respective dads that they hated. I realized immediately that these two commonly did the same behavior that they hated in their dads. Did I also do that? I looked, and sure enough, I realized that whenever one of my kids asked me a question I usually replied with a schizophrenic answer and never ever really answered their serious questions.

I never thought that I was especially curious about people's motives, outlooks and reasons until my wife started complaining about my going up to people and quizzing them about one, two or all three of those things. I started doing this behavior when I was about 45 years old. Strangely, while shyness prevented me from doing this earlier, I also had no interest in other people, which also prevented me from doing the behavior.

It seems that my interest in people arrived at the same times as my fear of them disappeared. It doesn't seem to me that either of these phenomena came before the other, but rather that both arrived at the same time - as if both were caused by some third phenomena. It seems, from looking at myself from the inside, that this interest in people seeded an interest in other creatures, and this in turn created an interest in existence itself, which still blows my mind whenever I ponder upon it.

That was fun for me.

Was it good for you?