Listen to no one...

I interrupt my studies because a thought came to mind. Not a thought per say...just...one of my musings. I follow Casey Neistat and Ben Brown on youtube. In one of his vlogs Neistat said the best advice is, "listen to nobody." Hmmm, very profound. What does that mean to me...many things really...For one I understand where this is coming from. If I where to listen to people about how to do my things I'd never really see what ME is and what ME can accomplish. 6 Billion and more people living on planet earth. If I listen to someone and take their advice I'm conforming...ME never really comes out. 6 Billion people all unique and different. You ought to be more like so and so....says mum...says society. You follow a role model even to places you dont agree with...then YOU is never really born. Just think about it...we take advice, many a times against our own gut feelings from a few considered to be models of success. What follows is that we're never US but just copies of these individuals. Redundant copies, for the sake of conformity; not to mention the colossal loss of unique talent/contribution we deny planet earth and mankind. I remember Arnie said "bend the rules"....I think now the penny has dropped. Rules, advice...equals uniformity and conformity plus a colossal loss on the part of the individual as well as mankind on the skill set they could offer. I'm out

Confessions Of A Stutterer (Overcoming)

Confessions Of A Stutterer

As a small boy; around the age of seven, I developed the stutter. I say "developed" because I never used to have it, or so I'm told. I had a cousin of mine a bit older than I was who had it mildly. I used to tease her every time she stammered in what I took to be a good humoured way. I would imitate her despite warning I could call the scourge upon myself. I took all this as superstitious of course; or perhaps I had spoken too soon.

 I started to stammer around this time. The stammering wasn't as bad as one of my friends. The same had to bang his chair and or table in frustrated effort to force the words out. It gets really annoying when all of a sudden you cannot say and speak the way you want to. Its like being misrepresented by your own body. I had to learn to avoid some words as they caused me to trip a lot. I had to find new words in their stead. A read lots of books and quickly developed a large vocabulary that allowed me to bypass the stutter. I grew to realise that the stutter became almost completely diminished when I spoke with an accent. It felt all very artificial at first but soon got the gist of it; over articulating now and then to ride over those rough and terrifying words. 

 On top of all this juggling I began to speak really really fast. I spoke so fast I had to consciously slow down to allow people to hear me. I take it that my body developed this habit as a mechanism for overcoming my stutter. Though this was a sure way of making it worse; I spoke so fast such that I sledge-hammered my way through words. I spoke almost fluently in English but stammered like mad in my own language of Setswana. It was so bad that sometimes words couldn't come out no matter how hard I tried. Because of this, I stammered so much around my grandparents and extended members of family who I was expected to communicate in my native language. 

 Stammering can be very painful. Not physically, but emotionally. It was especially more painful for a boy like me with this huge vocabulary and great quotes in mind not to be able to express them. I could always tell a mile away if a word or phrase was going to trip me up. Many a times I've kept quite when I really wanted to contribute to a conversation or share a really funny joke. I just knew, and still do, that I could not be able to let out the perfect sentence I have formulated in my mind. 

 However; you will be shocked, dear readers, to know that there is a situation in which I do not stammer AT ALL; I mean completely zero stammering and zero fear of stuttering whatsoever. This is when I speak in front of an audience. In fact, the bigger the audience the better. I quickly grew to extrapolate that the reason this was because of the voice elevation I had to assume when speaking to a crowd of people. Lets liken speaking to opening a springed door just for a moment. Force is needed to open this door, after which it springs closed. A force smaller than the minimum force will not open this door; if anything much it will cause the door to flutter and close quickly. My chances of stammering, I've noticed, are much higher when i have a one on one conversation with someone. This is because; I deduced, I have to lower my voice to an extent that air rushing through my vocal cords it too weak to overcome the "tendency" of the stuttering muscular reflex. On the contrary, speaking to an audience gives me the excuse to elevate and project my voice so high and so powerfully that my vocal cords couldn't surely fail me. In these situations, I've always felt invincible and unable to stammer. 

 I am really good at public speaking and have been commended at that. I have, on multiple occasions been awarded best speaker in my Junior schools debate competitions and speak incredibly fluent in front of school assemblies. It came as a surprise then when I discovered a pattern when I looked up famous people who stammered. Most of them where into politics(public speaking) and the arts(acting and performing on stage) All these activities required higher voice elevation and pitch variations. Most of them also believed in the importance of having a large vocabulary for substitution of words. 

 Bruce Willis overcame his stutter by performing on stage and memorising words 

 James Earl Jones overcame by reading poems whilst looking himself in the mirror. 

There are many others who overcame their stutter in similar ways. I mention here Joe Biden, who like me overcame he's stutter by reading out poems. This is all part of re-training our minds and vocal cords what proper speaking is all about. Godspeed to all in this exciting journey of self discovery. Good luck my friends!

Luck Favors Only The Prepared~Luis Pasteur

Studious men of rhetoric and purely academic minds do not usually believe in luck; that success can come about by lucky circumstances such as being at the right place at the right time by chance. They believe that success and breakthroughs can only be attained by labored precision and accuracy, with no room left for chance or skepticism. To an extent they are right; right that diligence is that preparation necessary to cease opportunities when they do present themselves. But in a field where everyone is quite good, sheer luck and chance tends to play a role.

Consider this for example. A writer’s book gets published by New York Times because he’s bright letterhead caught the attention of the publisher who was otherwise day dreaming of daisies. This guy then grows on to be popular and acclaimed as a renowned story writer endowed with the gift of ancient story tellers. Other writers start to quote his words in their own books, thus his works reaches more and more people; so more and more people buy his book which soon becomes a best seller selling ten million copies. This guy’s success cannot be purely attributed to the hard work he put in, but also the element of chance that played a significant role. Most probably he’s manuscript wasn’t the best in the chaos of other books. But because he’s got read(by chance) it displaced all the other books, which were probably more noteworthy and aesthetic.

If you ever happen to read Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “The Black Swan” (which you should at some point in your life) you’ll happen to come across his notion about how the American system works “simply because it allows people to be lucky by aggressive trial and error.” So good writers will not always be the one’s who’s books get published, but who’s books(by chance) get the attention of the day dreaming publisher! Of course the book has to be a good one to be actually published, but not necessarily the BEST. You’ll also discover in this amazing book why it’s easy for “the rich get richer whilst the poor get poorer.” Sorry for using the book and publisher analogy, but I can’t think of anything else. A book writer gets published and he’s book becomes a bestseller from that. Other writers quote his words, thus increasing his audience. He later quotes them too in his newer books, thus becoming an “I quote you and you quote me situation.” This creates a caliber or class of book writers, who the world will take as the epitome and prodigies of literature. The works of other writers gets forgotten and diminished, therefore never seeing the light of day even though their works are greater. They sag and complain (rather than send their manuscript to other reputable publishers, or just write another book)

#AgressiveTrial&Error