backchannel: doin’ it right
When I was camping in the snowy spot a group of young people hiked through. Nice enough folks, with one guy who appeared to be something of a blowhard. A bit unusual at that early age.
We talked for a while and he misunderstood the essence of pretty much every topic while holding forth confidently on all of them. I was reminded of this quote:
> The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -- Bertrand Russell
He also had a head full of terrible ideas about building a campervan, each of which he punctuated with the catchphrase ”I’ll be doin’ it_ right_.” His hiking buddies acted vaguely embarrassed for him.
Sometimes people are so confused there is nowhere easy to start untangling the knot. Sometimes I don’t care if they stay knotted and I keep my mouth shut.
I didn’t think this guy was amenable to reason, but the other hikers were listening in and some seemed interested. Maybe they were considering their own camper builds. So I asked some open-ended questions:
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what happens if… ?
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do you have a plan for… ?
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have you considered… ?
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what are your thoughts on… ?
He had canned blowhard retorts for everything, ending most of them with “doin’ it right”. Yeah, buddy, you’re doin’ it right.
I hope he doesn’t take anybody else down with him.