One of my most optimistic findings is that persons who are fucked up beyond recovery (FUBAR) can still be influenced. They will not recover or come close to recovery, but they can be influenced.
Case Study
I was communicating a few years ago with a nice Girl (although she was naive) at a restaruant, and we exchanged our thoughts over a period of several days (we were discussing our views on life, and etc.). Repeatedly the FUBAR person disagreed with 99 percent of my thoughts.
After several attempts to try to come to an agreement, the girl gave up in communication, and wanted to end our friendship. She claimed that my philosophies were not at her level, and that she disagreed. She claimed that I was wrong about everything that came out of my mouth. Surely, I was right about at least one thing? Or two things? She claimed I was so wrong about everything. At this point upon giving up I was given the boot goodbye (or we both agreed to boot each other goodbye) since too many of our philosophies were in disagreement.
During the goodbye the FUBAR person recited back one of my philosophies in the goodbye communication, almost word for word, as if they had invented the philosophy - and ironically, this philosophy of theirs (actually mine) was one of their reasons for saying goodbye to me.
Other Example
(this isn't what happened to me, but is similar situation).
You tell Joe you are not interested in a certain food because this food contains a high sugar content. Joe drinks or eats this food anyway. 2 months later Joe stops drinking or eating the food and Joe becomes a health advocate.
Joe comes near you and mentions to you that he disagrees with eating a certain food because it contains a high sugar content (not realizing, the person standing in front of him was the person who told him this weeks/months ago). Joe says that he found this food contained a high sugar content and it isn't healthy, or that someone told him this.
Joe wishes to know what you think about that food and wants to know whether you drink or eat it. Even though you are standing right in front of Joe, he completely misses the fact that 2 months ago, you were the person who told him about avoiding this food.
This finding means that even if you communicate with a person who disagrees with 99 percent of your advice originally, they may end up unconsciously absorbing one of your advices or stories - or they may end up discovering the philosophy on their own at a later date, and acting as if they discovered it newborn.
Take another example:
Have you ever told someone a story, or gave someone advice, and then 5 days later or 5 months later this person is telling you the same story or advice. You are standing right in front of them, you told them the story - and they can't link it to you - and they are about to tell you the story because they think someone else told them the story (or they feel they came up with the idea from scratch) and they feel you need to know of it.
Problems
- The FUBAR person didn't consciously absorb the fact that you told them the story or advice - because they consider you to be of little importance. They find the story useful ONLY when they ignore the fact that you told them the story! They may not absorb the story until days, months, or years later when they can no longer link you to the story. They can still remember the story details but the person who told them the story is such low importance that he or she is deleted in the link.
Once they have absorbed the story without linking it to you, even though you told it to them, they now are able to tell others of the story (or the philosophy). Once they have blocked you out or dis-linked you from the story, they can even tell you the story at a later date, as if it were their story that you had never heard before.
- Or, sometimes the person may even realize that you told him the story or advice - but they are in *violent agreement* (see bottom of page for link) and consider you wrong even though they agree with your philosophy, which makes little sense.
Friends Or Family
This happens in families too, not just marginal friends or people you have met but you don't really like. It is a good way of telling who in your family and friends truly respects you.
If it happens a lot with a certain person, be warned that this person does not have a lot of respect or confidence in you consciously - but their naivety and ignorance allows them to unconsciously absorb parts of your philosophy without linking it to you.
Sometimes, a human will ask you "was that you who told me this advice about so an so?" before telling you about it. This is not harmful and the person is not FUBAR. They are actually linking you to the story or trying to recall if you were the person who told them. this is okay. The problems are more when they make no effort or continually make little effort to recognize you as the adviser, and its when they hypocritically recite back your information without realizing that you were the person who told them it.
There are also cases of Violent Agreement where people have arguments about the same issue. Each person fights the other person about the same issue and both are in agreement without realizing. Why are they fighting? See http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ViolentAgreement. The worst kind of violent agreement is when one cannot see the agreement as agreement, because arguing is more natural and acceptable to them than agreeing.
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