“ I am almost tone deaf—only with great effort can I carry the simplest tune, and serious music was to me no more than an arrangement of noises. So I did what I always did when trapped: I sat down, and when the music started, I fixed my face in what I hoped was an expression of intelligent appreciation, closed my ears from the inside, and submerged myself in my own completely irrelevant thoughts.”
It’s exactly how I’ve managed my way through countless dinners with my wife’s French speaking family.
> A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
People talk about the singular focus that some famous people have on their interlocutors. When someone this famous is so intently focused on you, that must come across as incredibly thoughtful and even magnanimous (given all the other people they could be talking to).
I have wondered if these people were always this way, or if they developed the habit after becoming famous. I've also wondered whether the singular attention would be received in the same way if it were coming from someone who was not as famous.
It's obviously better than talking to someone who is constantly glancing around the room, but could it ever bee seen as creepy or weird? I can't imagine this fellow would have followed just anyone up into an upstairs room with a phonograph player!
I once shook Bill Clinton's hand. It was over several people's shoulders, and he turned, made eye contact for two seconds, shook my hand, and turned back to the person he was talking to.
It was magical. Those two seconds of eye contact told me that he genuinely cared about me as a person.
I don't believe he gives a shit, but wow that charisma.
Bill Clinton has exactly this reputation, for being absolutely magnetic with people he meets.
Here's Gillian Anderson (X-Files):
> She recalled meeting former President Bill Clinton back on his campaign trail in 1992 during a chat. She found herself attending a luncheon with the prez-to-be 30 years ago. Anderson remembered being so awestruck by Clinton, that she wanted him to phone her afterwards. “He did the most miraculous thing in the world, he shakes your hand, then he grabs your elbow and at the same time he holds your arm further up.”
> The “X-Files” actress went on, “[It was a] slightly intimate little thing. [He] makes eye contact. And he moves on to the next person. Then he looks back at you.”
> Anderson then described that their meetup was a thing that the politician did to everyone that he comes across. However, she still expected a phone call from him afterwards. “I went home, I thought – this was in the days of answering machines – I literally thought that I was going to go home to a message from him,” she added. “I did. It was that real.”
The closest contact that I've had with Einstein was meeting a woman in California in the late 80s who said he used to visit her father and play the fiddle with him. On the one hand it seems amazing that such a great man would take a break and make himself available for things like that. On the other hand I wonder if he would be as widely celebrated if he hadn't done that sort of thing.
> Einstein immigrated to the United States in 1933, where he held a professorship at Princeton University until his retirement in 1945. His routine there was simple. Between 9:00 and 10:00 A.M. he ate breakfast and perused the daily papers. At about 10:30 he left for his Princeton office, walking when the weather was nice; otherwise, a station wagon from the university would pick him up. He worked until 1:00, then returned home for a 1:30 lunch, a nap, and a cup of tea. The rest of the afternoon was spent at home, continuing his work, seeing visitors, and dealing with the correspondence that his secretary had sorted earlier in the day. Supper was at 6:30, followed by more work and more letters.
> Despite his humble lifestyle, Einstein was a celebrity in Princeton, famous not only for his scientific accomplishments but also for his absentmindedness and disheveled appearance. (Einstein wore his hair long to avoid visits to the barber and eschewed socks and suspenders, which he considered unnecessary.) Walking to and from work, he was often waylaid by locals who wanted to meet the great physicist. A colleague remembered, ‘Einstein would pose with the waylayer’s wife, children, or grandchildren as desired and exchange a few good-humored words.
Pretty sure Einstein was always that way: a generous, compassionate, and perceptive person who cared a lot about music and wanted to help other people understand the world.
Someone having a break-down in communication and then a falling out with their spouse, ultimately leading to divorce, doesn’t mean either partner is a bad person, lacking in generosity or compassion, etc.
Marriages can be delicate, take a lot of hard work, and can break in any number of ways, when the two partners’ priorities don’t align. It’s a particular challenge if one of the partners is extremely busy with their work, often traveling alone, has lots of external obligations and commitments ....
These particular letters are evidence that Einstein had a bad relationship with his wife for many years and probably fell well short of her original expectations, being more occupied with his career than his family. But not necessarily evidence that he was a jerk or mistreating anyone. Without knowing a whole lot more about the situation it’s pretty hard to judge from a few letters.
(It is generally shitty that women were (and are) often expected to give up their careers to support their husbands’ careers, and later to raise children. As a society we could do a lot more to promote gender equality and help support families.)
A while back I found in his wiki article that when he worked for the Kaiser Wilhelm institute he had visited Japan and written some racist things in his personal notes. It was oddly reassuring. Einstein, probably the most deified scientist out there, had attitudes and behaviors completely typical for his time period and social status.
These are interesting ideas. It likely varies based on the listener, but possible explanations may be:
i) Transferable focus: Many famous people known for their accomplishments may have succeeded at their work thanks to a great degree of singular focus. This may translate to social interactions, focusing on other conversation participants. Due to selection bias, famous people who are less attentive/tend to multitask are not included in these anecdotes, as they do not get a reputation for listening closely.
ii) Charisma: Other famous people may have succeeded due to strong salesmanship as a primary or secondary skill, which may have led to fruitful connections or funding opportunities. Part of their charisma is from attentive listening.
iii) Placebo (similar to your idea): The amount of attentive listening was normal for any respectful person. However, because the famous person's time is seen as very valuable (as you mentioned), the behavior is seen as exceptional as they could have been doing other things.
iv) Learning (similar to your idea): As the person got famous, they ended up speaking to lots of high-ranking politicians or celebrity figures, and consciously or sub-consciously picked up the habit of attentive listening from them.
Separately: I think a singular attention is typically seen as positive even from a person who is low status. It typically feels good just "feel heard" even from a stranger, especially if few people are typically interested about your life (psychologist Carl Rogers wrote a bit about this). For testable examples, you would probably prefer an experience of singular attention from speaking with a family member, teacher, waiter, or barber/cosmetologist. Even if no service is rendered, it's probably nice to be listened to by a stranger in a one-off conversation.
Attentive focus might only be seen as creepy or weird if there's only intense eye contact with unnatural body language, without other signs using speech that the other person is attentive.
I tend to agree that focused attention is a positive from any type of person, but was curious what other HNers thought. I think one of the tips from How to Make Friends and Influence People is to ask questions and encourage others to talk about themselves. That is along the same lines.
And it's possible that this skill/habit correlates with success (like your reference to charisma) because people who become successful are more likely to be good listeners.
This story has had a great influence on how I taught dancing (swing-Lindy Hop).
Always start from an easy place, build from there, no surprises, no big jumps, and you arrive at the destination.
A bit of the opposite of the "How to draw an Owl" meme [0].
So it seems that I was looking at a different part of the picture than most of the people here. You were admiring Einstein focus, while I was examining his method.
I am in the middle of listening to Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson and would highly recommend this biography to anyone interested in more.
I had no idea that Einstein was so compassionate, so aware of how other people were reacting to things, and found so much joy in opening things for other people. Amazing.
Einstein once remarked to Oskar Morgenstern, one of the cofounders of game theory, that he went to the Institute chiefly to walk home with Gödel. ("Um das Privileg zu haben, mit Gödel zu Fuss nach Hause gehen zu dürfen." There is in the original German a note of gentle deference that cannot quite be translated.)[0]
I believe Einstein also brought Gödel to the IAS. Basically the whole time he was in the USA, to the end of his life, Gödel suffered from very serious depression.
Have you read about that time in which Einstein forced an elbow in Göedel's sternum as the logician was innocently starting to present a technical fault in the Constitution of the USA in reply to a judge who heartedly spoke to encourage him ("Here you are protected"), during the session to grant him citizenship?
A wonderful vignette. Note how Einstein structured the dialogue and interaction to find out the extent and nature of the problem, then help the listener.
On an only vaguely related topic, I strongly recommend this video by Evelyn Glennie, a deaf percussionist:
Seems entirely plausible as a factual story (perhaps from the late 1930s) that Einstein could meet Weidman at a party in NYC, and such a conversation wouldn’t have been out of character for him. Though it’s also plausible that Weidman made it up.
I have met more than my fair share of talented engineers, some with stacks of patents, who would happily stab colleagues in the back for their next promotion.
Even within the hallowed halls of academe, it is well known that competition is vicious for grants and tenure and abuse of graduate students is commonplace.
It seems as if compassion and empathy are orthogonal to brilliance. I hear enough stories that fall on both ends of the spectrum (tech founders appear to lean asshole, but amongst Nobel prize winners, I feel it's more balanced) that I don't think there's any correlation between the two.
> I hear enough stories that fall on both ends of the spectrum (... amongst Nobel prize winners, I feel it's more balanced)
I think that if you have a gong like that you can relax some of your insecurities. The only nobelists (& equivalent) I have known* have all been supportive in person, though some of them did not have a reputation for it.
The reason I put "can" in italics is that there's no guarantee: some people are simply jerks and for some people a great honor will simply increase their impostor syndrome.
* don't get the wrong idea: I'm not talking about a huge number.
I take it back. I don’t know any Nobel winners directly but know a few one degree of separation out (Physics, Econ, and two Biology), and the people I know who worked with them all said good things about them. However, go down a notch to just professors and there was a lot more ego and maybe more drive than curiosity. Politics likely more intense than in corporate world and egos just as large, but maybe fewer assholes?
I think the definition of intelligence differs then for me. Intelligence is the capacity to comprehend , understand not just mechanically able to solve a equation. As the periphery of that understanding increases it starts to include others and by extension have the capacity to understand others pain or that what can be called as empathy. Again all these are just words , so I completely will empathize with you if your understanding of the same word differs than mine.
You are speaking about cognitive empathy (the ability to sense other's emotions), while the "common usage" you are describing is known as affective empathy (the ability to share or respond emotionally to emotions in others). Same word, two different concepts.
>> happily stab you in the back for their next promotion
That means you met intelligent people who did not imbibe good virtues & values in life, hence their attitude was not free from cunningness. Hence they did not possess any great intelligence!
> intelligence has evolved in the animal world as a weapon of survival.
Your point sounds interesting, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean.
Are you saying that greater intelligence caused some species to crowd out their less-intelligent cousins?
If so, how would we be certain of that? I mean, it seams plausible, but I'm not familiar enough with natural history to see why it's the best explanation for the historical record.
I had been trying some evenings ago to construct a convincing 'No True Scotsman' argument, as the criticisms against such form appeared to me quite weak.
The story is interesting, but it's obvious it's fake. For starters, you wouldn't just happen to find yourself sitting next to Einstein in 1955, and it only gets more improbable after that.
This story was originally published in 1955, the night he met Einstein didn't happen then. I didn't see an exact date but he did say "When I was a young man" so I assume it would have been quite a bit before 1955.
Presumably this happened sometime between the late 1930s–early 40s, when Weidman (b. 1913) was a “very young man, just beginning to make my way”. Per Wikipedia, Weidman’s first novel was published in 1937.
It’s exactly how I’ve managed my way through countless dinners with my wife’s French speaking family.