Peek Into The Soul

I was over someone’s house the other day, and I was looking at their music collection. I remarked that photo, movie, and music collections are a peek into someone’s soul. My friend added that the book collection is too. I’ve always loved looking at people’s photos. I remember a friend of mine asked me why I always wanted to look at his yearbook, and I think that is why. In his casual picture, he is doing a one armed handstand while doing a split. Anyone who knows him well knows how much that captures a certain part of his personality.

I don’t have many photos of myself, probably because I was never the real adventuresome type. With the exception of what my Mom called the “Wall of Charles”, all my grade school pictures, there aren’t many photos of us. We were never like those families who take pictures and send them as Christmas cards to their friends.

My music collection is ridiculously diverse. I have everything from Juan Luis Guerra to Miles Davis to Yanni to Beethoven to Parliament Funkadelic to Wu Tang Clan to Jimi Hendrix to old obscure Sondheim Original Cast Albums. You know what I hate? When you ask people what types of music they are into, and then they say “everything”, or they say “all different types”, and then you ask for specifics, and they look at you with this totally empty look on their faces, or they will pull the most well known brand names out of their ass, which they have obviously never listened to. You will ask them what Classical Music that they like. You either get a blank stare, or you will hear them answer “Beethoven’s Fifth”. I’ll let you in on a little secret. I am like an Orchestra snob, and I have never heard the entire Fifth Symphony. I have however heard the entire Pomp and Circumstance. Yes, there is more than just what they play at graduation. You know: da da da da da da, da da da da da, da, da da da da da, da da da da da, bum bum bum.

I have to plead total elitism when it comes to my DVD collection. I think that the most mainstream film that I have is Patton. My favorite writers/directors are Woody Allen, Jean Luc-Godard, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, David Mamet, and Aaron Sorkin. For the most part, I don’t watch any movies that aren’t playing at The Ritz or are on the IFC or Sundance Channels. Maybe it’s cause I want to see some real shit, some good dialogue and an actual story. The old Hollywood blockbusters did this very well. Now, it’s about how much gratuitous sex and violence that you can fit into an hour and 45 minutes. While that does have a time and a place, it just isn’t my cup of tea. At least not when every movie is like that.

By book collection is pretty sad. It consists of the Cannon of programming books like Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, and at least 5 books by Wrox. Then there are the financial books like The Millionaire Next Door and Rich Dad Poor Dad. Oh, and of course you have to add in the whole Liberal politico books like Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and Conscience of a Liberal.

So how else do we look into people’s souls? Well, when I’m talking to someone for the first time, I usually ask them what they do for a living. I so hate triteness. I really do. Thus, I think I need a new ice breaker, but this is such a good one, if you use it the right way. We often use it to put people into little socio-economic groups instead of using it as a springboard to see who someone really is. Like people assume that I am all about money, anti social, boring, and don’t know how to have fun because I am a Computer Guy. Some, of those things, I will admit, I did need to work on, but it had nothing to do with being a programmer. The truth of the matter is that you will never meet more frugal, outgoing, interesting, and fun people than most of the programmers that I know. You might have to get past a little wall, or a little outsider hazing, but once you do, you will never meet cooler people. The whole us verses them thing always gets in the way at first.

After I know people for a little while, I ask them about their spiritual journeys. You will get some very interesting stories. Then I ask them about how they dealt with the total hazing period known as the early 20’s, and you will defiantly get some insightful info with that question, probably because this time in our lives is almost universally sucky. The fun one is to ask married couples how they met and how he proposed. I think you can pretty much tell it all by that one.

Maybe next week I’ll have better signs, but now I’m pretty much playing it by ear. At the end of the day, it may not be the signs, but how we use them. If we use them as a beginning and not and end, then we are doing a good job. If we use them as a filter, then well, we are just pushing people out of our lives.