“What are you reading?” asked a young man sitting a few seats over from me at the counter at Joe’s Stone Crab Take Away in South Beach.
“Social Intelligence, The New Science of Human Relationships,” I said, “by Daniel Goleman.”
“What’s it about?”
It’s another popular take off on the ancient I-We thing,” I said.
“What thing?”
“You know, the I-We thing, the thing about what the nature of the relationship or balance between the individual and the group or society should be. This author emphasizes the We. He thinks we individuals nowadays should be more compassionate and caring about others and less selfish if we want to be happy. There is really nothing new about it except how he dresses it up with references to works of modern experts. He comes down on the We side, going so far as to cite something that Walt Whitman wrote that would really disgust individualists.”
“What’s that?”
“There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well. All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.”
“Can I look at it?”
“Sure,” I said, and slid the book over the counter towards him. “It’s old wine in a new bottle. A writer can make a fortune on it if he has the right agent and publisher. Bantam published this one.”
“You’re a writer?”
“Yes, but I write because I love to write. I never try to market my work. As for the odor of people, I cannot stand smelling them. That’s for people overseas who do not wear deodorants and like to smell each other. I read that an Arab might remark to someone at work that his breath smelled like he ought to see a doctor right away.”
“Nonsense: I have travelled.”
“Do women use underarm deodorant and shave their legs in France?”
“Yes. I’m writing a book on travel.”
He explained to me that he given a very good job in Ohio to travel all over Europe. He wound up in Panama, where he had gone into real estate, and was now in South Beach, working for Sotheby’s, up Washington Avenue from Joe’s Take Away.
“Travelogues have been popular throughout the history of literature,” I recalled to keep the conversation alive. “The Adventures of Marco Polo was a best seller. Traveling used to be considered a means of education.”
“I loved travelling.”
“A friend of mine travelled about Europe when he was discharged from the service, and he still talks about it decades later. He was an artist, so he supported himself drawing things on T-shirts and selling them on the streets. I would rather read travel books than travel myself. Does your travel book have a lot of pictures? People are graphic today. They want to look at pictures instead of reading descriptions.”
“Oh, I didn’t think about that. Good idea. I know a great photographer,” he said, leaving me to wonder if he had written anything at all, for how would he get a photographer to retrace his journeys. Maybe he is coming on to me, I thought; one never knows in South Beach.
“This is superficial writing,” he remarked, thumbing through Social Intelligence.
“Indeed. It’s a money maker. It was going for thirty-dollars a pop in 2006. I paid a buck for it yesterday. He is a best-selling author. Maybe he got a half-million off this book.”
“A friend of mine said he made a lot of money on a book because all the libraries bought a copy.”
“You mentioned you worked for Sotheby’s. Now there is quite a story, how a newspaper journalist came up with ideas that made Sotheby’s a fortune in the art world, popularized the art business. Stanley Clark was his name, a heavy set man, I recall, not very neat looking.”
“Now we’re doing it with real estate.”
It occurred to me that Social Intelligence was a good book to carry around as a conversation piece. Maybe I should get a copy of Emotional Intelligence to go with it. Perhaps I would eventually become a happier member of society if not more intelligent, the socialist hypothesis being that intelligence is more social than individual.
The young salesman proceeded to press me for personal information. Was I retired? Did I own properties on the beach? Did I live year-round on the beach? Did I have good friends who lived on the beach?
I made the mistake of saying that my best friend lived on the beach, and was currently with her ex-husband, who came down to help her with some business.
“We are showing some nice units in a building this afternoon he would be interested in.”
“No, his investments are in London. The family would never invest in Florida. They do not like it. They consider Florida to be a trashy investment.
He would not take “no” for answer, said he had a big contact in London, kept pushing and pushing, wrote down his contact info in my book, and said to be sure to contact him.
After I parted company with my new acquaintance, I scanned a few pages from Social Intelligence and emailed them to him.
Therein we are advised by the author that institutions today “are vulnerable to the accountant's delusion that social goals can be assessed by fiscal measures alone. That mentality ignores the emotional connections that drive our very ability to be-and work-at our best.”
George Herbert Mead, readers are informed, originated the idea of the “social self," the sense of identity we form as we see ourselves in the mirror of our relationships. Mead proposed as a singular goal for social progress a "perfected social intelligence," with greatly heightened rapport and mutual understanding.”
Let us also consider Daniel Kahneman's research into how to escape from the hedonic treadmill: cultivate a life rich in rewarding relationships. That is, “take stock of the people in our lives and the pleasure we get in being with them, and then try to ‘optimize’ our day by spending more time with them in satisfying ways.”
Statistical research proves that people would rather be with, first of all, their friends, and then their relatives, spouse, children, in that order. And then comes clients, coworkers, boss, and, finally, one of my favorites, being alone.
“But beyond such obvious logistical solutions, a richer possibility is to re-create our relationships to make them more mutually nourishing. Surely much of what makes life worth living comes down to our feelings of well-being-our happiness and sense of fulfillment. And good-quality relationships are one of the strongest sources of such feelings.”
And let us not forget Martin Buber's message: he “warns against an outlook that is indifferent to how others suffer and that uses social skills for purely selfish ends.”
My new acquaintance was apparently not that interested in me or my book. I have not heard back from him since I emailed him those pages. Still, I have some compassion for him. The poor man was desperate. A sales position is often the only job an unemployed but relatively intelligent person can get. I recall selling encyclopedias door-to-door in California. Most likely the poor fellow is getting no base pay and must sell something quickly to pay his rent.
# #
Cultivating social intelligence at Joe's Stone Crab Take Away was too odorous for me.
I have recently joined a writers' cooperative here, claiming to market my books. I've also heard much about marketing and noticed that even big stars go on the talk show circuit every time they write a book or make a movie to try to pump up sales.
I also came across an acclaimed film that I saw over 40 years ago, Fires on the Plain, made in 1958 by an acclaimed Japanese filmmaker--subtitled. I doubt if it ever made money, but it is a realistic view of the human condition, very similar to what is being played out in the Philippines today.
I haven't been spending very much time promoting my books and they're not selling. Still, I believe that the cream rises to the top and it is not sales that make a good book, but whether or not it says something worthwhile.
Keep writing your wonderful stories…
Ron