Conversational Magic

Synopsis: Be real

Once, my cousin Daniel told me something that I quite liked. When I repeated the idea back to him much later, he was initially impressed with the fact that I knew it. I explained that I had learned it from him, which fact amused him.

I have not read the book, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, but I'd like to talk about it. The idea is all in the title, and it turns out the author focuses on classic literature. I learned this by using the reading hack I described in an earlier post. You can talk about Balzac with zero work. Magic.

A combination of the two is to reuse people's vocabulary on them in a conversation. You get the benefit of appearing knowledgeable while you acquire knowledge. In addition, you are guaranteed to dwell on topics that interest the other person.

The problem, to me, is that the previous actions involve slight dishonesty. Couldn't the solution be to admit when you don't know something? Give people credit for their ideas? I think so. It's disappointing to feel like your knowledge is common, it's fun to explain concepts that seem new to people. If you're interested in what people say, people like it. You can still use people's vocabulary on them, after giving them credit for exposing you to it.

For some reason there is a desire to appear knowledgeable, which desire some people absolutely cannot suppress. If you start to say something they've heard, they can't let you finish the sentence, they've got to interject. It's a difficult urge to quell. I'd say it's worth quelling.

Honesty is the best policy, and in this case it might be the best policy even in absence of morality.