Aj’s Comments (group member since Dec 03, 2019)

Aj’s comments from the fyevibesperiod6 group.

1. "Today we are now thrown into contact all the time with people whose assumptions, perspectives, and backgrounds are different from our own. The modern world is not two brothers feuding for control of the Ottoman Empire. It is Cortés and Montezuma struggling to understand each other through multiple layers of translators. Talking to Strangers is about why we are so bad at that act of translation.” This passage means that in life we aren't always two similar people when we have misunderstandings and disagreements we are often to unfamiliar people who don't know each other when we have issues like on school assignments and joint projects with coworkers. The biggest problems arise from situations where we know each other the least so it's important to understand each other.
2. My book relates to self awareness because in chapter 6 it talks about why it is so hard to understand each other and read each others emotions and it says that it is often the most difficult to understand another person when you can not understand yourself
My book relates to self management because in chapter 9 it discusses how during interrogation the hardest to break have the most to lose and their self management is so unwavering and strong that they can make it years on end without talking.
My author, Malcolm Gladwell, talks about the court case of Amanda Knox an Italian exchange student who was accused of killing her roommate. Gladwell talks about how during her 8 year prison sentence even after being lied to and told she had an incurable disease she never lost hope and was eventually proved innocent.
The main topic of my book pretty much is social awareness. Throughout Gladwell talks about case after case of times where social awareness failed or was ignored and the consequences of those mistakes, and how we can learn from those mistakes.
In my book Gladwell talks about the slaughter of the ancient Mayans by Spanish conquistadors and how it was an absolute and total fail of a potential relationship after a translating issue. It was overall a completely detrimental fail of relationship management.
3. I think that the person that should read this book is someone who wants to learn about how to understand and learn about the issues associated with talking to strangers and how to avoid them in everyday life.
4. I have learned that we can't always understand the stranger not everyone is transparent and not everyone wants to be understood we just have to do our best to gauge who they are.
I have also learned transparency is not simple at all. Seldom is someone showing how they are feeling on the outside and we just have to accept that and instead ask how they are feeling we can't assume.
Finally I have learned that as humans we have to accept a lot of failure in our lives and we have to accept that. No one could ever do everything perfect and we instead have to improve ourselves the best we can and accept that we aren't perfect.

Eliezer wrote: "a. I've read the introduction of the book so far and I like the book because it talks about the author experiences how he learned from them.

My book also relates to the experiences of others just from an outside point of view from the author as he examines some cases of people just not understanding each other through time.

Mia wrote: "a.) The book isn't really helpful right now. It's informing me about the problems of being insecure, but it isn't giving me advice on how to fix that.

My book isn't really helping me out a ton at the moment either just about all i have read so far has just been explaining the premise to the book.

Matthew wrote: "A) I enjoy the book well so far because it is teaching you how to introduce yourself to people. It is easy to read and fun.

Introducing myself is my least favorite part of talking to a person it always feels weird i might have to check out that book myself.

Norah wrote: "a. I enjoy the book so far because new doors are opening that I never noticed before, such as the fact that we are controlled by fear. Specifically speaking, I am starting to see that we aren't ful..."

I also agree is minors our parents and guardians control large parts of our lives and while that is good a lot of the time some times adults can hurt us even when they think they are helping us. I also agree that often people do make decisions based on the fear of not being accepted and a person should never be pressured into not being who they are.

Missy wrote: "a. The book so far is going well. I feel interested enough to where I won't feel forced to read and annotate. I like it because the book is uplifting and gives me a positive mindset.

My book is also very interesting and when i read i also don't feel pressured to throw it down and go do something else. I am glad you are enjoying your book.

a. I like the book a lot so far especially for a nonfiction book and it is easy to stay interested in the book because it talks about interesting topics.
b. "We put aside these controversies after a decent interval and moved onto different things.
I don't want to move onto different things".
I thought that this was impactful because it gave the impression that the author really did care about the topic at hand and really felt a passion for it.
c. At times it can be difficult to keep track of everything the author says because there are a lot of different names, agencies, and acronyms that I sometimes mix up or forget.
d. "Cortés and Montezuma wanted to have a conversation, even though they knew nothing about the other". These two were implementing their social awareness by not immediately fighting and trying to kill each other and instead expressed a desire to get to know each other.

I want to learn through my book how to break down my walls and learn how to understand and even talk to strangers. I believe that I will do this by gaining a new way of thinking about the world around me and the concept of strangers itself. I also want to learn a little bit about why people don't want to talk to strangers and why some are even often intimidated by strangers.