Tuesday, August 17, 2010

One of the Drawbacks of Mirrors, Part I

When I was younger, I had a "special gift": the ability to convince almost anyone of almost anything! Many of my contemporaries believed I would go on in life to be one of the world's best salesmen. I was so good at my craft that I could sell a profitable slaughterhouse to a devout vegan or a bucket of bees to a person deathly allergic to bee stings.

It's a good thing I never used this special ability for sinister purposes. No, instead of trying to profit from it personally, my motivation was far more innocent and simple: I love to make people laugh!

I have always been a comedian and a jokester. As a young lad, I studied the techniques of the leading comics of the day. One of my earliest lessons in this vein was that, in order to elicit the biggest of belly laughs for the punchline, you had to sell the audience on the lead-in. The best way to sell the lead-in was via the deadpan -- that look that convinces people that you are dead serious.

Here's how it would go. I would bound into a room almost out of breath. In feigned excitement, I would recount some completely inane event, occurrence or concept. People would look at me and say, "No way. That's a crock." With that serious look in my eye, I would ladle on piles of BS that contained a smidgen of truth (a very important tack to convince the worst skeptics).

People would fight to disbelieve me. "Are you sure?" "Is that possible?" I'd keep going until everyone in the room thoroughly was convinced of the veracity of my outlandish claims. Once I realized that the last victim had been ensnared, my demeanor would change instantaneously and I'd let them in on the ruse. The greatest fun was the "Aha, gotcha moment."

In most cases, almost everyone would burst out laughing, some gasping for air. The laughter was fueled by the realization of being duped into believing something that no rational thinking person should ever accept. It often amazed me how I could ensnare the same people again and again and again.

I no longer have this special gift. It left me about a decade ago. While there are times when I wish I had it back (some great joke comes to mind), I understand full well why it departed and I'm a better person today because of this.

I'll discuss the reasons as well as the reference to the mirror in Part II tomorrow.

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