looking for diamonds
in others and yourself
If you hold close to nature, to what is simple in it, to the small things people hardly see and which all of a sudden can become great and immeasurable; if you have this love for what is slight, and quite unassumingly, as a servant, seek to win the confidence of what seems poor – then everything will grow easier, more unified and somehow more conciliatory, not perhaps in the intellect, which, amazed, remains a step behind, but in your deepest consciousness, watchfulness and knowledge.
Rainer Maria Rilke
One’s opinion about the world tells a lot about one’s character (Emerson). What can be a better opinion about the world than seeing the best in people, in excavating the diamonds they all carry, but that they have forgotten about, that they have pushed down in the soil following the instructions from society? Witnessing genius reminds us of our own forgotten thoughts (Emerson) and people who excavate these diamonds illuminate this fact.
It continues to surprise me how little is necessary to inspire someone to act. If you pay attention you can see the glimmers of these diamonds, buried in the soil. Merely acknowledging their presence starts the excavation. Maybe love is another word for paying close attention to this, to seeking them in others. What is love than kind of sustained attention?
People sometimes try to counterfeit this for this or that reason and give hazy praise that points at nothing in particular. This is known as flattery. What I speak about here is not this kind of praise. No. What I’m talking about here requires sustained attention.
Again I’m reminded of “good reply game” and how to be a good citizen of the internet. How you can do a poor job with your replies merely by agreeing wrongly and also how you can do a great job with your replies if you disagree correctly. This, of course, is true outside of the internet as well. In conversation, what most of us seek from others is truly being heard, so if you want to be a good conversationalist you need to become a good listener. A good giver of attention.
There was one account on Twitter that did a great job with it: Ryan. For me he was the apex Twitter user. He didn’t have a large following and I’m not even sure what he did as a day job, but he built a following of influential people merely by writing great replies. Often people try to pursuing the goal directly, in this case the goal of building a following on social media by trying to tweet a lot, but Ryan pursued the goal obliquely. He didn’t tweet a lot. He just replied. There is no glory in that game, it’s seen as less prestigious than tweeting, but for me this activity was very attractive. Even more attractive was the fact that he never had a blue checkmark to boost his replies. He was not doing it for the attention, just for the love of replying, supporting people.
I think one of the tragedies of our narcissistic age is the fact that there are not enough supporters. Everyone wants to be supported, but no one wants to provide support. Ryan was a true supporter and this made his account attractive.
There is another person that reminds me of Ryan and that’s Spencer Kier. I remember seeing how he encourages people on Twitter to publish books, so I was not surprised to learn from the latest Henrik Karlsson post that he encouraged him as well to go paid. And now Henrik makes a living from writing on Substack. He is a prime example of a great supporter, maybe even better than Ryan, because he demands action. An inspiration.
I’ve read some time ago how in good relationships there is a Michelangelo effect. Each partner is seeing and excavating the David from piece of marble that is the other partner and they are both enjoying it. Each partner is making another the best version of themselves. In other words, each partner is looking for diamonds.
Words have immense power and since we are awash with them, we don’t appreciate them enough. But words turn into action (Sun Tzu) and the right ones propel one to the sky. The most skilled propel themselves to the sky, but the less skilled can rely on the support the other. Propelling yourself by your own thoughts takes the most skill, because we each have our own blindspots, where the diamonds are hiding. Propelling others, however, doesn’t take that much skill. As I said, it only requires love/attention. It requires so little yet makes such an impact. I don’t know of any other activity with such a great cost/benefit ratio. If you’re not careful, it’s easy to let the jealousy sneak in when your friends get successful, but the wise actually want all of their friends to be more successful than them.
The fact that I’m building the app I’m writing this in was directly caused by a conversation with a friend who I haven’t seen since college and who upon our reunion said “Huh, how come you don’t sell your own product? You definitely have that in you.” Prior to this I had a complicated relationship with building products. For a while I did it, I launched a couple that weren’t that successful and then became bitter by the whole product making business. But his words inspired me to try it again and I’m really enjoying the process. I just follow what’s interesting to me. I build whatever looks cool, then use it and see if it’s really cool or not. Programming a writing tool integrates the both sides of my parents (a linguist and a programmer) and I feel like this is my life mission: building the best writing tool in the world. I’ll either succeed or die trying. I don’t intend to use any other app for writing as long as I live, so it better be good.