Twin Wins™: Advances Get the Award; Set Backs get an Obit

Revu2 · Jun 25, 2023 at 11:46 AM

Turning 70 in December. Letting go of so much, a party is due (and Julene has complained that we don't throw any.

Theme: abundance.
Location: The Central
Music: DJ Cliff
Food: Lakesa Oases
When: Saturday after Earth Day, 2024
Charge: $20 to count you in for food buying, Give $55 in Chinese style, but custom Red Envelopes.
Don't want or need the $ - put in a barrel for ...
Ideal # of People: 55 naturally

Grand visions for this new abundance era: Games (bridge includes), Arts (including design), Friendships. What pins me to the floor: not fully clear, but in the zone of Time, Yucks, Death, or Riptide. I like Riptide.

Eight days of stealth while this mills about gaining weight.

Revu2 · Aug 22, 2023 at 12:04 PM

Riffing off "I'm turning pro!"

I'm turning
back to being childlike
to being an amateur
to being a beginner
to being a mistake maker
to being a repeat attempter/ repeat tryer ... a do it againer

Revu2 · Dec 24, 2023 at 12:15 PM

Last pieces of work to retire completed 2 days ago, on Friday. I made it! I can make my own changes the love of my time. I have 4 for now:

A. Fair Speaking (making my demeanor more alluring, less grating, zero "I know better.")

B. Generosity.

C. Doodling

D. I smile in my space (make space)

Re: Fair speaking. Found this piece from Tricycle by a mom's effort to stay in Right Speech with her teenage son. This work is a skill and practice, so prepare for cycles of effort, and adjustments.

Artistic ideas now are to make a Kaipa Pyramid and print a 2 sides 8-fold booklet to carry about: inside will be the KP, and the book will be reminders from my process of making it. Something to show for my efforts.

Revu2 · Aug 26, 2024 at 12:48 PM

Less Penguiny's definition: “Bragging is personally imposing what-you-believe-to-be-status-elevating thoughts on your audience.”

1. The Bare-Bones Brag is directly telling your audience of Your Greatness. No effort at deniability is made; the brag is served raw without any need for inference on the audience’s behalf.

Robin Hobb: “The person who must brag for themselves knows that no one else will.”

Aw, dang it, I'm guilty. It's so interesting most of the articles and quotes key to the speaker's imputed insecurities, spoken by someone in the audience. Doesn't quite match me, I'm boasting because I feel great and want people to know. After all, they were not there. Found a quote about fools bragging and wise folks staying quiet. And research I saw supported that keeping a positive secret ADDS to a sense of strength. Implying that sharing a positive secret is a weakener.

Which might be the sadly on point for me. Right after a brag I'm exposed to out-of-awareness errors, mistakes, or accidents. It has always felt like I was being punished for being good at something.

I have always attributed that to my father's withholding support for my interests if they failed to align with his or his peers approval. What would people think? And there was the silence around "routine" high achievement like mAking high grAdes. This little playing with spelling would probably annoy him. He would move to correct me. What if people thought I didn't know how to spell?

I have to deliberately ignore, work around, or push pass this inner restricter, and when I break through, which is hard work and thus rare, I'm excited about it and want to run to my daddy and have him say, "Great. Good Job!" and pin the freaking picture up on the fridge.

That child in me is "bragging" seeking dad's, or anyone's, ready and instant approval. Oddly, only a handful out of a hundred "get me" when I do that and feed me what I'm needing. I forget, therefore, and "brag" to audiences who don't care and are likely put off and therefore "cut me down" to size. A tactic of my dad used as well. Hey, folks (dad), I'm pre-cut to "size" already. Put the ax away. But they don't.

So the counter-weight to this is people who feel insecure and smaller when hearing of someone's achievement as a boast or brag. Rather than looking inward and dealing with their emotions, they "cut" or belittle, or one-up the alleged braggart.

Revu2 · Aug 29, 2024 at 10:54 AM

2. One Up Brag—the ME Monster. “The one up brag is a real stinker.” And might shut down the whole topic.

Remedy: When feeling an urge to “top,” switch on stronger listening, praise the speaker and probe for a richer sharing.

This is much easier for me because of my drilling in "pacing" from neuro-linquistic programming (NLP). It's staying level with the speaker.

Guilty, but it's not a violation.

source prompt before I forget: The Best Article Ever Written about Bragging.

Revu2 · Aug 30, 2024 at 10:09 AM

3. Reciprocating Brag. Both One Up and Reciprocating brags are triggered by status-conferring statements. But the goal of this brag time is to show in a comparable league. Might put the original speaker at ease (pacing).

This style, rather than being status promoting (or trying to), is status matching. Observe if the original speaker One Ups again or "stays on the level."

Revu2 · Aug 31, 2024 at 11:14 AM

4. Bullkokka Brag. “There need not be a blatant, bald-faced lie for a brag to amount to a Bullkokka Brag; within its scope falls a variety of omissions and misdirections.”

“Smell kokka when one's bragging.” ― Toba Beta

I have a bag of these (well, maybe 1 that comes to mind). These are fun. This is also possibly a cultural matter, as some social styles practically demand exaggeration and hyperbole. That's merely the ante to stay in the convo.

Donald Byrd is a legendary dancer noted for his flair and demands placed on his dancers. During a break in one of his performances he asked for volunteers to step on stage and share a joke with a racial or ethnic bias in it. The performance, I should add, was about minstrel shows.

I'd just heard one and after I paused to recall the punch line, I volunteered. He waved me forward. So ...

A. I've performed under the direction of Donald Byrd.
B. I've performed on stage at one of our city's stellar regional theaters.
C. I performed a solo.

A good response is what I'm feeling now—Yeah, right.

Revu2 · Sep 02, 2024 at 02:14 PM

5. Out of Nowhere Brag. Jarring brags not connected to context or topic. Rare. Social media built from the ground up for OONB.

Score partial guilt. I sometimes nudge the convo in a direction where my brag might be fitting. Say, as is my current case, I might ask, "anyone have travel plans?" and then share what my plans are. Partly I do this, not to brag, but to get tips and leads.

Revu2 · Sep 05, 2024 at 12:19 PM

6. Show Off Brag. The ‘show-off-don’t-tell’ approach. Many examples everyday when there’s money involved, like buying a round of drinks.

Not too prone to do this as my skill sets are slow and solo. Like writing. "Hey everybody, watch me pull this grant proposal out of thin air." And 3 weeks later, Voila!

Revu2 · Sep 06, 2024 at 12:52 PM

My first look I noticed 17 styles of bragging. Now in the 7th round Less Penguiny piles 4 under the #7 mark:
7a. Humblebrag. Status-upgrade
comment that is masked as a
complaint or "hard choice."

7b. Congratulatory Brag. Insincere impression-engineering while the other party is not privy to the conversation.

7c. Expertease Brag. “Freely” offered advice carries the feeling that the Speaker is Expert and the receiver Knows Nothing.

7d. Public Thank You Brag. Broadcast via social sites rather than through private channel.

These all have an element of abuse of default public attention. I'm most guilty of 7c Expertease Brag (my term). It feels hard to damp down, I mean what did I put in all that time and attention riding experiences, reading, listening, and digging into the literature? It's quite costly arranging for a legit audience when what I have to add is just a sentence or 2. Or a poem. Or a joke. Or a better precision about the facts or data. Or odd research that leads to a variant conclusion.

Sometimes the accusation jumps from my sense that I know 1 or 2 things to "He's a Know-It-All!" [KIA] And "You're different, not everybody blah-blah-blah."

MY KIA syndrome nudges me to "share what I know." Awk! Here's a blog on it.

They write: "The fact is, I’m never as smart as I think I am."

Well, I see a chance to practice tomorrow, and tomorrow, and ...

Revu2 · Sep 08, 2024 at 11:12 AM

8. Outsourced “Brag.” Note quotes. Proverb 27:2 Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.

I just at a party and the host connected me with another guest and showered high praise for one towards the other. Made me extremely edgy because I'd rather have that type of information come from a conversation. And what she highlighted might "seed" or prime topics while our best connective issue may be missed.

I couldn't stop her. When my turn comes, I'll just say Hey, Dave, this is my buddy; Judy, this is my film scene friend Dave. I hope you find things to talk about ... " and leave it at that.

Revu2 · Sep 15, 2024 at 10:51 AM

9. Reflective Glory Brag. “I hang out with great people, Ergo, by virtue of their wanting to hang out with me, I too, am great.”

There are many ways this drops in. Anything associated with an achieving group. Say, college attended, team membership, civic organization, etc. Personally, I'm still a little surprised at my own good luck to have traveled with glory. Helping to organize one of the largest anti-war protests in NY City (volunteered in the office a few days), attending ACT UP meetings (they were down the block, attended less than half a dozen times), and so on.

I'm not sure what to do with this one because the experience framed a life moment or lesson or moral that I hope adds to the convo. It hints at my feeling for where my own bona fides come from.

Revu2 · Sep 19, 2024 at 01:29 PM

I'm not going to slog thru the remaining brags. The result of this project is a folding perzine for my personal use as a reminder.

Internally, I'm much more deliberate about speaking about myself. Calmer in meetings and convos. Floating merrily down the stream of living.

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Twin Wins™: Advances Get the Award; Set Backs get an Obit

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Revu2 Grand Member Member Since Aug 2013 Posts: 856 11 4 hugs given	Aug 22, 2023 at 12:04 PM #42 Riffing off "I'm turning pro!" I'm turning back to being childlike to being an amateur to being a beginner to being a mistake maker to being a repeat attempter/ repeat tryer ... a do it againer __________________
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Revu2 Grand Member Member Since Aug 2013 Posts: 856 11 4 hugs given	Sep 05, 2024 at 12:19 PM #49 6. Show Off Brag. The ‘show-off-don’t-tell’ approach. Many examples everyday when there’s money involved, like buying a round of drinks. Not too prone to do this as my skill sets are slow and solo. Like writing. "Hey everybody, watch me pull this grant proposal out of thin air." And 3 weeks later, Voila! __________________
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Revu2 Grand Member Member Since Aug 2013 Posts: 856 11 4 hugs given	Sep 19, 2024 at 01:29 PM #53 I'm not going to slog thru the remaining brags. The result of this project is a folding perzine for my personal use as a reminder. Internally, I'm much more deliberate about speaking about myself. Calmer in meetings and convos. Floating merrily down the stream of living. __________________
	Reply With Quote