Oh, what a fun ride it’s been.
I’m not sure why people think my embarrassingly wrong prediction on the Frank Vidal affair is license to say, “I told you so.” The only people who were going to be taken in by the hoax in the first place, were amateur body language experts without police-grade experience. That’s exactly what I am. If you’re below that level, lack of sophistication is not something to brag about.
On the whole, I’m satisfied with my performance. Others took it as seriously as I did, but didn’t apply themselves as diligently to building a case and raising the alarm. For example, Enderdog at Above Top Secret writes:
Hoax it may be. But, you are wrong on the eye cues and body language. Having studied NLP for about 25 years, I can say his accessing cues are consistent with someone who believes what he is saying. There’s a sort of bell curve of ways people access and process their internal representations when speaking….or even just thinking. And while the majority of people tend to fall somewhere in the middle section of this curve, and therefor have similar strategies, it cannot be said about anyone that they are lying, based on where they happen to look, micro-expressions, or body language, without calibrating to the person individually.
A part of what makes some people smarter than others, is that often they have internal processing strategies that do NOT match the normal distribution curve. This changes both the kind and amount of information they process, as well as likely having better algorithms for doing so. This guy may not have all the information on this particular subject. But, he believes what he does have, and is attempting to communicate what he thinks it means, and offering a possible solution from his own perspective.
After this, he may well get bought off, or convinced, or be given more information that changes his perspective. But, at this point, I am highly certain he is sincere. Stay well.
Crazyguy2012 of Above Top Secret is the only person who disbelieved for the right reason – because of the scenario’s unique potential for generating misinterpretation. He absolutely has the right to say “I told you so” to anyone who weighed in on body language, one way or the other:
But it is also important to decide if this person is possibly telling the truth or a fraud by any means possible. Body language is a clear indicator of whether someone is lying. If he were explaining to his wife where he was last night: then I would say he wasn’t telling the truth. Here however we have an entirely different situation. He is basically relating something he “allegedly” has been sworn to secrecy not to tell. Therefore, (without getting into all the factors) you cannot necessarily use body language as an accurate indicator of truthfulness. He is obviously hiding some information. Anyone in Law Enforcement will probably tell you that he indicates like an informant… It is very difficult to read an informant because often they were involved and are only telling part of the story. Therefore, I would rely only on other indicators. Anyone find any information to confirm what he is saying or who he says he is?
Just putting my two cents in.
I think my confidence in my abilities, like Enderdog’s, was reasonable given the information I had. I simply wasn’t likely to encounter a scenario of this difficulty with the stuff I was practicing on. Nor would I expect myself to pause for fear that a Puerto Rican dentist/actor would be harder to read than Charles Manson or Russell Hantz.
As far as I’m concerned, I told the truth according to my lights, worked hard, disregarded self interest, and that’s all I can ask. And I’m glad to have learned the limits of what I thought was a highly reliable skill.
More importantly, everyone’s not going to die. That puts a smile on my face.
The ego
Anyway, I’ve embarrassed myself thoroughly in the eyes of the blogosphere. Which gives me a good opportunity to contemplate the ego and its management. Since I certainly don’t want to suffer all those monkey shame emotions that attend such an event.
This recent video by Tyler on meditation is excellent:
I didn’t take a lot quantity-wise from it, since I already have a meditation system. Mostly it was affirmation of things I already believe. But he mentions dissociation of the observer from the rest of the self – that the observer is the true self. This is an insight that provides a lot of psychological stability and frame control. It’s by no means unique to Tyler. I’ve incorporated it into my primary tongues koan:
1 Sola Thuum (Tongues) (observer) (l:heartfire) (l:breathflow)
The combination of the two principles is quite powerful. The observer as the true self, with the tongues flowing through it / from it. The outer layers of the self, and beyond that the world, are all still there. But the binary core has the strength to maintain its integrity against any breach. This gives you a lot more freedom to experience emotions without feeling a need to resist them for fear you’ll be swept up.