Tag Archives: Enthusiasm

Greeting as a Look Into the Soul

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Do you pay attention to how strangers greet you? Whether they say, “Hi”, “Good morning” or nothing at all? If you do, you are likely to recognize that the one or two little words – or no words at all – people use in greeting you provides you with tremendous information about the person. It tells you what kind of person he or she is. What does he value? What’s his purpose in life? What does he think about his fellow species members? It gives you an insight into the soul of the person.

Think about it: children often greet you with a happy, “Hi”, when they pass you by, thereby showing that they haven’t been socially conditioned (yet) to speak with two words. Children just greet you in the manner they feel like greeting you: pure enthusiasm captured in often not more than a single word. You will also recognize that children will often be the ones initiating the greeting produce. They will say, “Hi”, first. They are not afraid of being invasive or in any other way disturbing another person’s “privacy”.

Now take a look at an elder person. The ones of 65+. These persons will hardly ever initiate the greeting process. And if you say, “Hi”, they will be suspicious and think you want something from them. Often they look at you slightly angry, awaiting the, “Can I have 10 dollars, please?”- question. They have built a shield in order to protect them from the sorrows and needs of others. “Just” greeting someone is out the question. There’s always a Marxian motive behind every greet. Power structures are dominating the social atmosphere.

What about the 20-35 year old category? These people are often so caught up in their own motives, goals and targets that they pretend to have no time for greeting. Moving in a firm walk, secretly hoping that they will encounter as few people as possible on their path. And the ones that want to greet them with a nod or a, “Good day”, have to be very quick. Otherwise the train of “making money” and ambition has passed you by.

People between 35-55 are slightly better. These people have come to realize that they are not alone on this world and that their lives don’t turn about money only. They absorb the world around them, slowing their walking pace and being receptive to the greeting gestures of others. Often a well-meant, “Hello”, can be heard when they are greeted.

But besides the distinction between greeters and non-greeters, the group of greeters itself can be divided again into many subcategories. Factors to look at in the greeting process are tonality, lexicon usage and facial expressions. If you do this, you are able to unravel a big part of a person’s personality in less than a second.

An example: you are walking your “morning walk” through the neighborhood you’re living. You are about to pass by a guy your age (early twenties) on the sidewalk. When the distance between the two of you has passed the “three meter-point”, you utter an enthusiastic, “Hi”, with a well-intended little smile and a nod. The person responds with an, “A good morning to you”, also with a smile and a nod. From this you can infer that he is a social person, who finds being nice to his species member important. Also, he is likely to be a Christian or in any way conditioned by a religion having taught him to greet others in a formal and decent matter. Why else would you say “A good morning to you” to someone in his early twenties? The person probably has not many friends, but the friends he has are good ones who consider him to be a trustworthy person. The person probably votes for a social party and finds his family more important than his career.

Another example: you meet a student – in his early twenties – in the center of town. You again nod and say, “Hi”, and await his response. You get a firm nod, no smile, and a split-second of eye contact. This person probably doesn’t have much faith in people being essentially good. Although he doesn’t really want to great you, but he finds it potentially dangerous not to do so, so he nods. He probably has a broad social circle, but few true friends. The person is likely to vote liberal and is planning to make a lot of money in – preferably – the banking sector.

You find this analysis of mine far-fetched? Maybe it is. But I believe that when you’ll perform this analysis for yourself, you are likely to reach the same conclusions as me.

But what do you think?

Purpose, Purpose…Where Are You?

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Life without a purpose is like shoes without strings: a burden you want to get rid of. An obstacle on your journey to happiness. A pointless gift you wished you’d never had. The only difference between shoes – either with of without strings – and life is that the former have been made for a purpose. They have been made to do something with. Whether it is supporting little children playing football or walking a pretty lady to the office. We haven’t been created with such a purpose. We are empty. We are – and we have to be – the creator of everything we experience, including the things we value: including our purpose.

What is life without a purpose? What is life devoid of any element that might be of any value? Probably more empty than a vacuum chamber. The only things there would be are our minds yelling at us, “Do something with your life!” And it is our duty – not our privilege – to decide what to do with our lives. And that’s the most difficult task we have. Because how can you know what your purpose is? How can you know what you’re true nature is; what your deepest desires and potentials are; what you’re here for on planet earth? And although you might not know, you have to choose. You’ve got only one life to live. You can of course fill your life with different journeys; the journey towards being a good man and the journey towards being a good writer . But there is always that demon of time looking over your shoulder telling you that all you do has to happen in time. No parallel universes exist. Only this world exists. And remember: time is ticking.

And still we only got one life. One life and so many opportunities; so many decisions to make. Each choice we make is a choice not to do something else. And who knows how that “something else” might have turned out? Maybe you are on the totally wrong track. Maybe you are living a life that could have been much better; you could have been much happier; you could have fulfilled your true nature. If only you would have picked the right track. But you don’t know. There’s no handbook telling you, “If you feel down, become a juggler and you’ll live happily ever after.” Or you must count in the Bible, although I haven’t read the passage about the juggler yet.

Yet juggling is what we do; each and every day. We have all kinds of conflicting urges that we want to fulfill. All of them in the one life we’re living. We want to be social; we want to be spiritual; we want to learn; we want to be entrepreneurial…..we want so many things. And the advice we need about what to do should come from either our ignorant mind or our intuition. And our ignorant mind keeps telling us that it doesn’t know what to choose. Therefore we are forced to listen to our intuition for satisfying our longing for guidance. No matter how twisted its proposals might be. You simply don’t have a choice.

If only we could be rabbits. Just fucking around, not thinking about what to do. Just letting ourselves flow on the sea of urges; no interference of the Ego. But I’m afraid we can’t, so we just have to make the best of it.

But what do you think?

What We can Learn from Children

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There is a lot we can learn from children. To name a few things: children don’t mind who they play with, as you as they can play. Children don’t mind what team they are in, as long as they are in a team. Children don’t mind about letting their imagination run free. They don’t even think about it. Children aren’t judgmental regarding others’ dreams; it’s okay if you want to become an astronaut or a rock star. Children are true artists; they have a direct connection between their creative minds and their bodily powers (read: “muscularly finger powers”). Children just go for it; they want to complete their collection of Pokémon cards (or FarmVille animals or whatever it is kids are doing these days). They don’t care – or even think about – the difficulties in “obtaining that goal”. They just wait and see where their ambitions will lead them.

Where did it all go wrong? Where did we get so caught up in our socially conditioned dogma’s? Why is it that we all want to get “a job by which we can make a decent living”? Why are we prepared to put our dreams aside in order for “normal lives” to interfere? Life is a game; and although children might not “consciously” realize this, they act according to this principle. They “understand” that the game of Monopoly and life are intertwined; that you can have pogs (“flippo’s”, for the Dutch readers) and that you can lose them at any time. They understand that you have to take risks (read: bet your pogs) in order to make progress. But we don’t. We don’t want to bet our pogs because we are afraid that we might lose them. We might lose the pearls of our efforts, the sweat of our creations, by taking a bet; by risking what’s at stake. But how can you ever make progress if you are afraid to lose what’s at stake?

I would like to ask you to watch an episode of Sesame Street. To look at Big Bird (“Pino”, for the Dutch readers) and try to feel his or her (I don’t know what Big Bird is) sense of naivety; its sense of not thinking about anything, and just doing what comes up in its big feather-like head. Big Bird always lives “in the now”; he’s a damn good hippy. And when you’re done watching Sesame Street, go watch an episode of Pokémon (or whatever series you people in the USA looked at while you were a child). Not only will you get overwhelmed by feelings of nostalgia; you will also come one step closer to the truth: the truth of “Gotta Catch ‘em All”; a motto that isn’t just applicable to the Pokémon world.

And oh, to the people in North-Korea: if you are reading this (which – for some reason – I doubt), why don’t you try to be a littler nicer to everyone else? I mean: Cookie Monster is also angry sometimes – at Elmo or Kermit or whoever stole his cookies – but he isn’t threatening to use nuclear weapons or so. He just comes up with “good” arguments in favor of why his cookies are his cookies; and not someone else’s.

The moral of this story is: although children can be a pain in the ass in transatlantic flights, when they just can’t seem to stop kicking the back of your seat, they are damn much closer to “the truth” than we are.

But what do you think?