Bon New Year Buddy

I'm not gonna recap my holiday, but suffice to say I had a good one. What this post is about the human interactions. My friend Heather just wrote an entry in her blog about all the random people who talked to her today. I think it's because holidays like New Year's where you want to spend time with people reminds you how important those interactions are, and perhaps leaves one feeling a little lonely, a little wanting afterwards.

I just watched Ocean's Thirteen. In the movie they have a super computer to monitor people to detect if they're genuinely excited to win, or if it's an expected win. It bases it's judgement off pupil dilation, body temp, blah blah blah. It got me thinking that having a human there, instead of a bajillion cameras, would probably be just as good. You can tell when someone is lying. But then it also got me thinking, that I can more easily tell that someone is lying when I'm interacting with that person. If I jump up and down and scream with a winner, I can use it as a reference for how the other person is reacting. It's an advantage I have over the guy standing on the other side of the room.

So I encourage you to interact with someone new, someone you just met, someone you may never see again. Say "hello", say "I shoot lasers from my eyes", say anything. And then listen.