"Aw, f*$% it..."
Today, I found someone truly precious. I went to the local Supercuts for my monthly trimming. Last time, an Asian lady I'd never met before cut my hair. She did a really good job. So good, in fact, that I actually got a lot of compliments (which is saying something for me... supermodel I ain't). I didn't get her name during that first visit, so I felt overjoyed when she was there again today. This occurrence was dumb luck, since I'm always a walk-in. She started cutting my hair, and we got to talking. We had a lot of time to talk because she's very meticulous (which, in my opinion, constitutes at least 50% of a good hair cut).
It turns out that her name is Chien Xishu and she's from Laos. I surprised her when I nailed the pronunciation of her name and made use of the small bit of Laotian that I know.
"Seuh khàwy maen Ken."
She lit up. "You even got the accent pretty good!"
Now, the only reason I know any Laotian is because of my father's involvement with the Vietnam War. In fact, I've never had the opportunity to try any of my Laotian on a Laotian person before today. But evidently, I got it. We chatted for a few minutes, I got her business card, and I assured her that I would come see her in a month. But her praise about the accent got me thinking.
The same phenomenon has been happening with my Spanish. I'm in the middle of learning it, because I'm a public defender in Florida. I can't afford not to know it. Especially in the town where I work, which is laden with Spanish-speakers. Fortunately, one of my assistants is from Puerto Rico, so she gives me plenty of opportunity to practice every day. I try to surprise her with two or three new words every day. Some of the most consistent feedback she gives me is that "I don't speak Spanish like a white guy."
I don't claim any special gift in linguistics. I know a few natural linguists, and I can't hold a candle to them. But I do seem to have a gift for accents. And I have come up with a very specific, scientific, and socially appropriate name for the phenomenon that allows me to pick up accents and pronunciations so quickly.
The "aw, fuck it" phenomenon.
One thing I've noticed, no matter what arena I encounter it in, is that people are self-conscious as hell when they're learning something new. When I teach people aikido, they're movements often start out as stiff and robotic because they're afraid of "looking stupid". I often walk over to them, and say to them softly and gently, "No matter what you do, you're going to look somewhat stupid when you learn this. So instead of worrying about it, just throw yourself into it and try to do what we're doing, as best you can."
This certainly ruffles some feathers, but I still think it is a good thing to say. For one, it's true. The first time you go through the movements of aikido (and the first few thousand times after that), you're going to have the grace of a rusty, unfolding lawn chair. It will look dirty ugly. One of the best ways to hasten it's prompt beautification (other than a lot of practice) is to simply say "aw fuck it" and focus on doing it, as opposed to caring how it looks. This little diatribe is often the first step in shaving down a new martial artist's ego so that you can enable his capability.
This phenomenon gets even more pronounced in lawyering. One of the really beautiful parts of my job is that it is a performance art. At least four or five times a month, I get a captive audience that I have to subject to dramatic monologues, as well occasional ad-libbed dialogs. It is extremely fun. Some attorneys are good at it, and others are not. I've noticed that skill at this particular part of the job has nothing to do with intelligence or eloquence. Those play a part, to be sure, but I know a lot of lawyers who are wonderful legal analysts, but atrociously bad in front of a jury. Likewise, I know people whose writing on paper would move you to tears, and whose public speech would also move you to tears... tears of frustration and boredom.
That common factor among good trial attorneys seems to be that they really don't care. They're willing to say "aw, fuck it" and just do the thing. They don't divide their focus by spending half of it on "what will people think". I think you get the same thing for most performance artists.
And I think the "aw, fuck it" phenomenon is the explanation for my ability to copy accents in language. After spending years wrapping my tongue about the very un-Anglo tones of Japanese, I really got desensitized to sounding stupid while speaking other languages. When I finally got to the point where I just let go and started matching the accents of native speakers, my nihongo got a lot more intelligible.
I would venture that nearly any venture you could venture upon would be notably improved by letting go and saying "aw fuck it".
Food for thought.
- Kenshusei