What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage

This is a fascinating book: What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage, which was spawned by Amy Sutherland's NYTimes article, "What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage."

This passage, and a particular line near the end, struck me while reading today:

Humans are so sloppy, I think, because we can later explain ourselves, put it another way, or apologize to our fellow higher primates. There's no explaining anything to an animal. If a trainer's timing is off and he unintentionally teaches a dolphin to jump when he meant it to flip, there's no explaining to the marine mammal, "Oh, jeez, sorry, what I meant was . . ." If a trainer unnerves an animal by getting too close too fast, he doesn't get to explain that he just wants to be friends. When a trainer falls down in front of a big cat, he doesn't get to explain it was an accident, that he's not a prey animal.

That animals take the world literally, connect the behavioral dots on the spot, and respond so clearly, drives home this fact: What you do is communication. If it wasn't so, we couldn't train animals. But we can, and without one word.

When your friends have unrealistic dreams

This just popped up on Ask.MetaFilter: How do you tell a friend that their dreams aren't realistic?

I know it's not GROOVY to be a PARTY POOPER and tell someone not to pursue their dreams. I usually tell people to do so and to work hard at it and I really mean it. But in THIS CASE, for a certain friend, I just can't get myself to do it! ...

This is what I responded back with:

I can very much relate to this feeling. I've been on both sides.

First, keep this principle in mind: If you have dreams and passions and don't pursue them, you will always regret it. So, knowing that, it's better for your friend to fail—and fail hard—pursuing his dreams, rather than have the kind of regret that pops up later in mid-life crises.

Second, try to give charitable criticism. Instead of telling your friend your perspective, try to walk with him through the process of thinking. Don't ask him questions that are leading, like, "So, did you make a plan yet? hmmm?" Instead try to think of questions that you would ask if you were his fan. "So what are you up to next?" You know, actually be curious.

Be open to a 50-50 chance that he could reveal something about where he's going that you just didn't have any idea about.

That's what it means to be charitable. And charitable friends are ones everybody should have. And through the process of talking it out and having a soundboard, there's theoretically a 50% chance he'll see the error of his ways anyway, and reform. But more often than not, if done right, you'll maybe help him refine his goals a little and your opinion of him will change a lot.

How to confront someone

What to do about a neighbor who looked through your mail?

This suggestion by ND¢ stood out to me:

... it also may help to give him a way out.

"Hi Jim. My mother-in-law tells me that she saw you opening our mailbox while walking your dog last Wednesday about 11:00 am. Were you returning some of our mail delivered to you by mistake?"

"Give him a way out." I love that idea.

In other words, it helps to be willfully vague when making an accusation. As a designer at a video game company, there were so many times when you'd bumped up against someone else's code, and have to point out someone's mistakes. As a result, we used lots of indirect comments like, "What's on this character's back?" "How did fixing that bug go?" "Do you want to me to tell quality assurance to double-check that?" These comments are, in some way, borderline passive-aggressive, when they're actually necessary to smooth out communication.

Our design department was also notorious for joking around at the office. I wonder if we'd be at each other's throats otherwise.

It always helps to leave room for a charitable interpretation. I asked my friend in college, who I wanted to accuse of trash-talking, "You know, you were talking about our friend the other day. I was wondering if you could walk me through that. Because an uncharitable interpretation is that you were talking behind his back." He quickly back-pedaled, told me that him and our friend go way back, always with ups and downs, and that his criticism was more of a familial critique. That put me at ease, and I also feel I got through to him.