Once I thought of a certain person that: 'if the truth took two sentences and a lie would take one, he'd lie.' Even about trivial stuff he was constantly lying. It occurs to me it could be that he was just (and is) uncomfortable with speaking much. And also perhaps not so good with words. So he tries to keep things very short. And that perhaps he's got enough fear/nervousness in him that it causes him to say really stupid things.

Perhaps I incorrectly thought he was 'evil'? And thus in return was fearful of him and thus somewhat indifferent?

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In regard to a recent email was also thinking somewhat related that perhaps this is the main cause of indifference, that people are too busy being afraid, too busy being suspicious, fearful, too busy erring on the side of selfish caution, and thus just simply avoid others.

Over and over again I can look at indifference and see this at it's heart. Which is to say again, that it simply takes strong/happy people to be compassionate. Where 'strong' and 'happy' mean about the same thing.

Where someone can be rich and 'successful', have tons of 'friends', have great health and even seemingly be happy (to some extent...?), yet be full of suspicion of others and thus indifferent and even hateful.

And so then the obvious thing to do is to try to reduce their fear, their suspicions, and to somehow make them 'stronger' and 'happier'. The end result being that they can manage to find more time to have concern for others instead of being selfish. (This as opposed to the zombie basis for compassion. The too far future. What a good blog title that was.) The end result also being they become wiser perhaps? And thus don't need to err quite so far towards selfish caution.

But it means that at times two seemingly contradictory things must be done. You must manage to truly show them that you want them personally to be happy while at the same time making very clear that you disagree with their actions. Successfully doing that is so difficult because their suspicion gage will go into the red the moment you express any disagreement.

I think that people put on ..demeanors or personalities/moods for given social situations. A large part of the decision of what to put on, what to 'wear', is based on tradition. Simply mimicing what they saw those before them do. Eventually it becomes 'natural'.

If instead you're reiventing everything, questioning everything, you may reject certain demeanors or simply hold back from putting them on simply because you haven't yet decided that they're really the best thing to do.

Then you're left with what? Unsureness. Appearing nervous. Ill at ease. Or just appearing flat. You don't know how you should act. So you hold back and appear shy. Or unemotional. Or unfriendly.

This ties into being a 'late bloomer', instead of just copying others and getting as far as you'll ever get by the age of 20, you think things through, invent your own way, or eventually decide the tradition was actually the best way, and thus you don't 'mature' till much later. And though perhaps with insufficient exposure to certain situations you just never do 'mature'.

In my life I've done both by the way. I've followed tradition very closely at times. And when I did it seems a lot of people were impressed. Some few women wanted me, my mom was very happy with me... but I was kind of disgusted. Because I knew it was an act. An act I was capable of falling into. And making 'natural' but still part of a tradition that I hadn't actually decided was truly the right way forward. So, thus, I was just really mindlessly going along like a puppet, in my mind. And a part of me was disgusted with myself. Even though I wasn't seemingly causing any harm and in fact apparently making a lot of people happy/impressing people, etc.

I'm talking of stuff from just how you greet a new person and carry on a conversation up to how you act at a wedding. How you dance, how you take part in the festivities there and at a dance and anywhere.

Instead of being disgusted with myself I then mostly preferred to appear as if I were sulking. Which is to say holding back, appearing glum/'flat'. Just observing. Not taking part in anything that I hadn't decided was truly the best way forward.

And then, when I'm not taking part in the games that others have decided to play, they get annoyed. Of course people generally are mindlessly playing along/following tradition and of course those who are turning left when everyone else turns right, or just aren't walking at all are going to piss some people off.

But here, just noting part of what nervousness can be in social situations. Along with focusing too much on yourself instead of having interest in others. Of course too much interest in the other ruins the balance and you've 'won' and then they're probably going to be nervous and so on.

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I borrowed an electric guitar from my one brother-in-law and yesterday a friend from nepal came over to play it. He has a couple such guitars in Nepal but didn't bring them with him. It's just like a somewhat cheap child's electric guitar. But with lots of overdrive distortion and/or some flanger, it sounds OK.

Attempting to play music with this guy a few times now hasn't really worked. He mainly just played bits of other people's songs. Which he does well, and was nice to listen to. There's something about having it right in front of you, controlling the distortion, etc yourself which is nice. But in trying to just play a few chords along with a drumbeat he starts he and there falling out of time.

So for me the interesting thing is to write music. I've zero interest in just playing other people's music. I want to improv and/or at least write original stuff. That isn't working out with him.

I couldn't quite see a way forward at the time and eventually just read a book while he messed around. In the past I managed to play a melodica while he played an acoustic. And it was music, but relatively crude. When it comes to being 'original' he's reduced to just repetitively playing a few chords as opposed to finding some random string of notes and then working with that string... But then perhaps two people improv'ing together means one has to keep it simple and repetitive.

So, just not sure how to work that.

Instead would make more sense for me to make tracks that have space left open for guitars and/or vocals. If I really want to collaborate with people. Which I think I do. So, I shall throw together such things. I think I could very easily throw together ten such tracks in a single day, just as a palette maybe for someone else to throw ideas at, and then back and forth.

...to be honest though, what I really want to do is just improv with someone. This fellow can definitely play a guitar but just isn't to that point yet.

I guess it just depends on what you do. If you just practice other people's music then you never get any good at improv'ing? I very early on would spend hours trying to improv on the piano, driving my family crazy as I hit endless wrong notes and slowly got better at identifying the right possibilities... You want to reach the point where you play a note and then in your head you hear what you want to come next and the instrument is just an extension of you, like your voice, and so you simply play what you wanted to come next. When nothing's coming next in your mind, then you can just wander around a bit while (usually) staying in key....

D vs S

I guess it comes back to the main reason for nervousness. Concentrating on yourself instead of finding the other interesting. Problem is usually that the other just isn't very interesting. In this case... that might be playing a role. But definitely I'm feeling like showing interest might greatly increase the chance that D will make a serious pass.

And I can't stand it when others constantly make such negative assumptions like that but here I find it very difficult to not do the same. I'm going to try to not do so... in the future. That is all. Can't stand the dishonesty otherwise stuck with. Drives me nuts. She has only voiced the sort of thing that people think all the time and don't say. (Well, they don't all think I'm "hot", definitely not. But think that in general of one another and don't say it.) Horrible of me to have this concealment in me. Horrible and unusual. Really I generally have nothing really worth concealing from virtually everyone. How pitiful then that exactly when someone is partially breaking free of the typical ugly social norms I revert to the sort of stuff myself that I'm always so critical of in others. How perfect.

Can't find old David Byrne youtube clip where he was on Letterman when young. His nervousness was just so clear and seemingly extreme. But then in general he looks like he's nervous even when he probably isn't.

Some quote by Schopenhauer, awfully elitist sounding about how for one so intelligent the best conversations are had with one's self.

Intelligent people are more nervous. Is it because of this (others just aren't very interesting)? Or just because they're doing a much better job at seeing potential dangers..? My stepfather and I see a toddler who is very outgoing and talkative with strangers and agree it's not a sign of intelligence to have so little shyness with unknown grownups. Not to mention early blooming in kids is just as potentially a bad thing as good as humans are the slowest maturing species and the smartest.