When I was growing up I had a magical TV.
It had a green tube and I saw my reflection in it and I would ask it, “what girls in school like me and want to go out with me, maybe even want to have sex with me?” I was 12.
I would wait for the answer.
From outerspace, the aliens who left me here would watch and would wonder why I was silent and looking at the TV.
Your life, my life, everyone’s life is a pyramid – there’s the tiny point on top of THINGS THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN – then there’s the entire pyramid of everything that we imagine to happen but doesn’t happen – like my magical TV.
And then the entire base of the pyramid is everything that COULD be happening. My biography, the Biography of James, is the entire pyramid, not just the top.
Maybe the aliens are on the base of the pyramid.
No, I dont know.
Maybe the aliens are in your pyramid. Not mine. I want the aliens, though. To have someone from another planet think I was special. That would be pretty cool. Unless they wanted to rape me. Which could happen.
We walk around and we only see the tops of everyone’s pyramid.
But we assume they see our entire lives – everything we hope for and dream for. Everything we want.
Everything magical or angry or afraid or lonely or shy in our minds.
But they don’t. They are thinking: if I find gold in the back of my house tonight I’m going to fucking kill my boss and live in an underwater cave in the Indian Ocean.
Then they say to you, “that way” and point when you ask directions to the closest Chinese restaurant. Then they think, “did he only ask me becauase I’m Asian. Doesn’t he know I’m Korean?”
We walk around with our pyramid of fantasies, frustrations and possibilities. We have zero clue on anyone else’s.
I wish I knew if Oprah liked me right now. Like, when I think of Oprah is she thinking of me? Is anyone thinking of me? Who?
If I think about someone and they are thinking about me at the same time, does something special happen. Pyramid sex?
Can I think out loud to them, “Dude, are we all good? You know – after what happened?”
What the hell. I don’t know what I’m talking about.
But now I can give a piece of valuable advice. Claudia just wrote a post giving advice to Airbnb home owners and the people who rent those homes.
One piece of advice, whether you are the owner or the one renting the home, is to leave a gift for the other. Think of yourself as either a host or a guest. Both sides can easily gift.
It’s gracious and kind.
It’s easy.
It creates an impression.
It plants the seed for great value.
It makes the planet environmentally sustainable for 10,000 years. (Just kidding / I don’t give a shit about that).
But it’s the same thing when you interact with anyone. You’re both the host and the guest of each other’s pyramids. Of each other’s biographies.
Give a gift.
I don’t know what the gift is. It doesn’t have to be a diamond chandelier. That would be really heavy to carry. You would need a truck.
It can be as small as a nice thought you think about the person. Or a book. Or a kind word. Or a vulnerability that you share. Or help the person. Or share an intimate moment. Give 100 micro-gifts a day if you can.
Gifts aren’t commodities. Everything else you do is.