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Geeks, nerds, and dorks October 14, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Life, the universe, and everything , 5 comments

I was always ok with being a dork.  I always pictured a dork as having a sense of humor, and I was ok with having that as my only redeeming quality.  Getting called a nerd was much harsher.  In my view, nerds were one-dimensional characters, unable to find beauty in anything but academics, Revenge of the Nerds notwithstanding.  The geek subspecies was never really present at my high school.  Perhaps it is native to the west coast.

However, others have recently informed that I am wrong, that in fact geek>nerd>dork.  Dorks are just useless, but at least a nerd has some type of skill (though probably not marketable).  See “computer nerd”.  Once you have enough of that skill to become marketable, you become a geek.

Now I just have to find out what a dweeb is.

Your thoughts?

Pressure’s on October 11, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Other , 3 comments

I got a panicked telephone call today from a guy in DC.  He just can’t take it anymore. He’s totally on top of his life except for one little detail - romance.  He’s got an awesome job, an awesome car, and an awesome family, but he feels like he’s letting them down because he doesn’t know how to build a relationship with a quality girl.  And it’s killing him.

I tried to point him to our workshops, but that’s not what he wants.  He wants a mentor.  He wants someone to take him by the hand and mold him into the man he wants to be.

That’s a lot of pressure.  I don’t know if I can handle it.  I’d feel so much better referring him to our senior instructors, but no one’s on the East Coast but me.  I could hear the desperation in his voice as he told me there was no one else he could turn to.  He wants this so much, and nothing else has worked.

What could I do?  I couldn’t say no.  So he’s driving up to New York to work with me this weekend.  I was going to spend my last weekend in the city with my friends, but instead I’m going to give this guy everything I’ve got.  I hope I don’t let him down.  I’m terrified that I will.

Your thoughts?

Uh-oh October 11, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Personal , 1 comment so far

The enormous spider behind my toilet has disappeared. I’m worried. What if, emboldened by his recent catch, he has decided to seek the most dangerous prey of all - man?

Your thoughts?

The Landmark Forum cult? October 10, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Life, the universe, and everything, Personal , 12 comments

Landmark Education, aka “the Landmark Forum”, is the most prominent of a style of “human potential” seminars known as Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT). Just some of the many others include PSI World, est, Promise Keepers, Lifespring, the Mankind Project, and the Kairos Foundation/More to Life (source: Wikipedia).  There are a lot of people out there who say these weekend seminars transformed their life, but there’s also a lot of people out there who call these companies cults.

I’ve had a number of friends go through LGAT seminars.  Some of them I respect a lot. All of them have had overwhelmingly positive experiences. Of course, since Landmark is essentially brainwashing its participants and reprogramming them, that’s about what you’d expect. Which is not to say the program doesn’t work, just that you have to take these opinions with a grain of salt. 

I’m considering taking one of these programs, but if anyone’s going to be messing around inside my head, I want to be fully informed beforehand. So this morning I started reading about them in depth.

(UPDATE: I was unknowingly lured into an LGAT weekend program, the Millionaire Mind Intensive, and was nauseated by how easily the seminar leaders sucked hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the participants pockets. See my post My Large Group Awareness Training Experience: Millionaire Mind Intensive)

I like to think that the material we teach is different. We help people build proficiency in specific skills, such as body language, flirtatious conversation, and relating to others.  For most people, these skills are closely intertwined with their emotional well-being.  As I learned the skills to be more socially successful, I also become more confident, more independent, and felt better about myself.

Landmark Education offers the opportunity to address your emotional state directly.  Using a combination of hypnosis, NLP, emotional contagion, and motivational speaking, they break you down emotionally and rebuild you. Some people’s lives are shattered by the experience. Some people find a new inner strength that enhances all their relationships, but others find themselves unable to relate to anyone outside the Landmark community.

You might think that reading all this would turn me off, but to be honest, I’m more curious than ever.  I’ll be reading more about Landmark and other LGATs over the next few months.  Here’s where I’m starting:

Negative info on Landmark:
http://www.rickross.com/groups/landmark.html
http://forum.rickross.com/viewforum.php?f=4

Pros and cons:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~anco/mental/randr/main.htm

Tons more links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmark_Education
(The neutrality of the article is under dispute, so skip the article and go right to the links section at the bottom, organized by positive and negative opinions.)

Cults in Our Midst

Your thoughts?

How to crash a party October 5, 2006

Posted by Niels in : Personal , 1 comment so far

“Niels, don’t you use your newfound social skills for anything other than flirting with girls?”

“Well, sometimes I crash Cornell alumni networking gatherings.”

A friend of mine pointed me toward a Cornell alumni networking event yesterday.  I really wanted to attend and meet some people in the publishing world, but unfortunately the event was already closed by the time I heard about it.  Nothing left to do but crash it.

Now everyone knows that the right way to crash an event is to walk right in.  Next time, I’ll do that.  I’ll wave at the door, pretend I know someone, then walk right in and join a conversation like we’re old friends (I can do that now!).

Instead, I tried to play the “I must have been left off the list by accident” card and got totally called on it.  But I was friendly and kept the desk girl laughing.  As soon as I saw someone leaving, I walked right up, got her laughing in the first second, and talked her into giving me her name tag.  This was right in front of desk girl, of course, who just stood there laughing.  As I walked in with my borrowed name tag, she waved me over and gave me a blank one to write my name on.  “You’re pretty persistent,” she said.  “Have a nice time.”

Your thoughts?