Not letting it bother you vs. not being bothered by it

The following is a quote from from Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon.  As usual, any typos are my own:

A peculiar arrogance accrues to people who cannot recognize the diversity of human impulses, and who feel superior because they do not lapse into behaviours that don't tempt them in the first place. People disgusted by sexual predators say smugly that they don't pursue the sexual favours of children, without acknowledging that they don't find children sexually attractive. Those who do not tend toward chemical dependency express disdain for addicts; people with small appetites patronize the morbidly obese. A hundred years ago, my homosexuality would have landed me in jail, and I am fortunate to live in a place and an era that allow me to be true to myself. If I'd had to deny my longings, it would have been a different experience from that of straight people who have no such longings to deny. Spending time with criminals, I have seen that while many have poor impulse control or are weak or stupid or destructive, many others are driven by a compulsion. Some manifest enormous courage by refraining from theft although the wish to steal burns in them every minute, and their restraint of emotions they cannot eradicate is categorically different from the lawfulness of people who find the idea of thievery distasteful.

This quote seems broadly applicable to many things in life and I expect to be referring back to it many times in the future, but the first thing that comes to mind is to wonder if it applies to "Don't let it bother you."

Example: one day last year, I was walking down the street when some random lady walked up to me and said "Where did you get such ugly shoes?"  When I was a preteen or teenager, this would have devastated me, but now that I'm older and wise, I simply don't let things like that bother me.  Not letting things like this bother me is a much better way to live life!  Everyone should do it!

Except, as you'll recognize if you've been reading me for a while, this isn't an example of not letting something bother me.  Rather, this is an example of something that never bothered me in the first place.  As I blogged about when it happened, Shoe-Hating Lady's comment didn't bother me because she clearly had no fashion credibility, I've received a critical mass of external validation for those particular shoes, and she phrased her comment in a way that set me up perfectly for a bright and witty comeback.  In comparison, when people would make negative comments about my appearance when I was young, they were people with more fashion credibility than me, I hadn't received any external validation, and I couldn't come up with a good comeback.

There was no skill or effort or virtue involved in my not being bothered by Shoe-Hating Lady's comments.  I didn't transcend any bad feelings or will myself into some positive or zen emotional place, it's just that the bother never happened.

Sometimes, especially in advice column forums but in other places as well, I've noticed a certain soupçon of smugness/arrogance from some people about not letting things bother them.  Rather than helping brainstorm specific solutions or alternate approaches for the letterwriters, their contributions are always "You shouldn't let it bother you" or "You should get past it" or "You shouldn't allow yourself to feel that way."  But if you ask them for specifics on how to do that, they have nothing useful to contribute, or they just tell you to not let it bother you.

So I find myself wondering if some of the people who say they don't let things bother them are rather simply not bothered by those things.  They're not actually actively doing anything to make the thing not bother them, it just simply happens to be a thing that doesn't bother them.

It also occurs to me that something similar might be happening with some of the cases where people think they've matured and outgrown feelings or priorities they used to have. 

For example, when I was in middle school, it was very important to have a circle of friends who are near you at all times.  It was very important not to wear the wrong clothes.  It was very important to be familiar with the correct aspects of pop culture. I put a lot of time and energy into meeting all these criteria and never being seen to set a foot wrong.  However, now that I'm older and wiser, I know that these things aren't really important and I do as I like rather than follow trends.

Except that this change has nothing to do with me and everything to do with how people treat me.  In middle school, people would actively work to make my life miserable of they saw me without friends near me, or in the wrong clothes, or indulging in the wrong pop culture.  And, because of the school setting, the people who did this were able to make my life miserable for seven hours a day, five days a week, and I couldn't walk away from them.  Now in adult life, the vast majority of people simply don't care, and those who do can be easily avoided.  This has nothing to do with my own maturity or wisdom, and everything to do with my day-to-day context.

So I find myself wondering if other people who say the same things did in fact become more mature and wiser, or if they're just removed from the situation where the importance of these things was artificially inflated.

Wherein I answer all the question in today's Ethicist

From The Ethicist:

I received an envelope that was addressed to my home but did not include a name. I recognized the last name on the return-address label. I opened the envelope and realized it was intended for my neighbor, a woman I have known, along with her husband, for many years. The letter chronicled the dates and locations of an affair the sender claimed his wife was having with my neighbor’s husband. I regret reading the letter. Upon looking more closely at the envelope, I was able to discern my neighbor’s name (the wife) and the words “private and confidential,” but these were obscured by the postmark. It seems the sender intentionally sent the letter to my home to keep the husband from intercepting it, counting on me to deliver it to the wife. Now that the envelope is open, the neighbors will know that I have read the allegations. What is my obligation: To deliver the letter or to inform the sender that this plan didn’t go as intended? NAME WITHHELD

Unlike the Ethicist, I think the optimal solution is to write "return to sender - no one by this name at this address" (in whatever the official wording for your postal system is).  The the sender knows that the intended recipient hasn't seen it and can take whatever action they consider appropriate.

In the depths of my mother’s closet, shrouded in a black garment bag, hangs her fur coat from the 1970s. And in the pocket of that fur coat, wrapped in a silk jewelry bag, is her ivory collection. “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing any of it,” she says. “But I don’t know how to get rid of it.” Is there an ethical way to dispose of unethical waste? STEVEN FRANK, LOS ANGELES

I have no idea what to do about the ivory, but the fur coat is still a coat, and therefore an item of which people have genuine need. It should be donated to the homeless or other people who genuinely need it to stay warm.  I believe this approach is even considered acceptable in animal-rights circles, since it deglamourizes fur.

I just noticed that the letter-writer lives in Los Angeles, so perhaps it isn't appropriate for his local homeless shelter.  But I'd suggest googling around the idea to see if you can find a way to donate it to people in colder parts of the world who need coats.

Pirate synchronicity

The following two comics were next to each other on yesterday's Globe and Mail comic page:

I like to think they're both the same pirate, getting all his medical exams done in in a row on his one day of shore leave.

The tale of the 13th floor poltergeists

My old apartment was on the 14th floor of a highrise building that's most likely concrete slab construction.  When the temperature dropped below -20, the building would settle really loudly.  Specifically, I'd hear these big loud cracking noises in the floor under me, loud enough to wake me up - often right under my bed when I was sleeping!

My current apartment is on the 12th floor of a highrise building of concrete slab construction.  When the temperature drops below -20, the building settles really loudly.  Specifically, I hear these big loud cracking noises in the ceiling over my head, loud enough to wake me up - often in the ceiling right above my head as I'm sleeping!

During the recent cold snap the loud noises started up again, so I started googling around the idea and couldn't readily find any reports of concrete slab buildings settling loudly in cold weather.  There were plenty of reports of wooden buildings settling loudly, but nothing about concrete. (And I know for certain there's no wood in the construction of my current building because I watched it being built.)

Then I realized: neither of these buildings have a 13th floor - both skip straight from 12 to 14.  So in the ceiling of the 12th floor and the floor of the 14th floor we have the ghost 13th floor.  Obviously those sounds I hear are the poltergeists that live there!

My condo is on the 8th floor.  If it doesn't settle loudly in -20 temperatures, we'll know that this theory is true.

The benefits of low self-esteem

Scott Adams asks whether there are any benefit to low self-esteem.

As someone with low self-esteem, there is a benefit I have noticed: I'm quite often delighted, and very rarely disappointed.

I try to do something and I fuck up: no surprise there.
I try to so something and succeed: what an awesome surprise!I can't believe that worked!

I shop in a fashionable store and am treated rudely: no surprise there
I shop in a fashionable store and receive good service: I can't believe how nice they were to me!

I invite a friend to do something and they decline: no biggie, I'm sure they have more important things to do.
I invite a friend to do something and they accept: I feel so lucky to have friends I can go do things with!!

I'm introduced to a puppy or a baby or some other small adorable interesting creature and they don't like me: I don't blame them, I'm just a big weird stranger
I'm introduced to a puppy or a baby or some other small adorable interesting creature and they like me: My day is made!!  Hell, my week is made!!!

At this point you might be thinking "But you've been successful at quite a surprising number of things over the course of your life.  Doesn't that lead to you start expecting success at some point?"  Yes, it does.  But, because I have low self-esteem, when that success is followed by failure, I just assume "Meh, I was due for it. That's what happens when you get cocky. The other shoe had to drop eventually." And, until then, I'm walking around with a smile on my face and dancing when no one is watching at the shocking quantity of good fortune I'm enjoying.

As I read this over, I realize it sounds like one of those gratitude or optimism approaches to life that people write self-help books about, so I want to emphasize: this is not at all deliberate or mindful in any way.  Unlike what Scott Adams suggests, this isn't a strategy. It's simply where my emotions land naturally.  But it's certainly not without its benefits.

How Google can fix the internet in one easy step

There's an article circulating called The Year We Broke the Internet.  The way we "broke the internet" is by being so quick to share things via social media that ultimately turn out to be hoaxes.

Google can fix this problem in one easy step: introduce a reverse sort by date feature.

Google already allows you to search results by date, so you see the newest first.  Therefore, its databanks must already have the pages organized by date.  By adding a reverse sort by date feature, to simply reverse the order in which the results display so the oldest is first, Google will allow anyone to determine the original internet source and origin of anything in a single click.

This would be especially helpful for reverse image search. I find that if I'm doing a reverse image search of an image that has been heavily reblogged on tumblr, the first several pages of results are just tumblrs that have recently reblogged it without context.  A reverse sort by date would let us see the source quickly and easily without having to dig through pages and pages of tumblr purgatory.

If a computer system can sort, it has the ability to sort bidirectionally just as easily as it can sort unidirectionally. You can see this in any kind of table with headers that you can click to sort.  All Google has to do is give us an interface item that can activate this functionality, and it would be taking a huge step towards fulfilling its mission of organizing the world's information and making it accessible and useful.

Teach me how to store my earrings

I have a lovely wooden jewellery box.  It's lined in velvet or some reasonable facsimile thereof, with all kinds of neat little compartments.  And it's utterly unsuitable for the jewellery I actually own - the sizes and shapes of the compartments simply don't correspond with the sizes and shapes of the jewellery, so my jewellery is currently all sitting in a tangled pile on top of the compartments, making it impossible for the box to close.

I've already worked out that I need a necklace tree for my necklaces, but that still raises the question of what to do about my earrings.  Some necklace trees have a little tray at the bottom that you can put earrings in, but I'd prefer something that keeps them more contained.  Googling around this idea, I see suggestions to use ice cube trays or egg cartons, but that would take up more room than I'd like. But, at the same time, I'd like to be able to see what I have at a glance rather than having to dig through.

I have probably between 10 and 20 pairs of earrings.  (I've never actually counted, and I keep finding ones I've forgotten about because they're currently being stored in this tangle of jewellery.)  I'd like a storage solution that enables me to acquire earrings willy-nilly without having to worry about whether I have space for them in my earring organization system. Most of my earrings are hoop or drop styles, but there are some studs in there too.  The vast majority of them are cheap; none of them are expensive.  The smallest are tiny little studs, and the largest are about 2 inches.  I don't plan for any future earring purchases to go much more than 2 inches in diameter for hoops, but I might go longer than that for dangles if they're lightweight.

Any suggestions?  How do you store your earrings?

Journalism wanted: why aren't Hydro workers electricians?

I just blogged that Hydro workers should be allowed to reconnect homeowners' equipment in order to facilitate power outage recovery.

Then I read an article about what the Hydro CEO was doing during the outage, which mentions in passing:

Meanwhile, workers report that, after finally restoring power in many neighbourhoods, they are being forced to disconnect some houses because of damage done to stand pipes, the hollow masts usually mounted on rooftops that serve as a conduit for power cables to enter a dwelling. A bent or broken stand pipe poses a risk of fire, and it’s the homeowner’s responsibility to have it fixed by a qualified electrician.

Hydro workers are not electricians.

 (My emphasis.)

So why aren't Hydro workers electricians?  They're working with electricity.  They're connecting bigger wires than electricians usually work with, so it seems like they should be able to be electricians.  Are they actually unable to do the work of electricians?  Or is this merely a certification issue?  Or is it a jurisdiction issue?

 What would it take for Hydro workers to be electricians?  Would they have to learn new skills?  Or just get an additional certification?

 I hate it when I walk away from a newspaper article with my questions than I went in with.

Things They Should Invent: allow utilities to repair equipment that belongs to homeowners

I'm fortunate enough not to have as yet been affected by the recent spate of ice-storm-induced power outages (knock wood), but I have been following developments fairly closely.  And one thing that has come to my attention is that some of the electrical equipment that's attached to the house may belong to the homeowner rather than the utility, and therefore homeowners are responsible for getting it repaired before the utility can reconnect power.

This would piss me off if I were a homeowner.  I have no power (perhaps for days!), then the Hydro people suddenly come around, only to tell me  have to hire some kind of contractor I've never heard of before, and probably can't research adequately because I don't have internet.  And if I've decided to go elsewhere until power comes back, I might not even find out for days that I need to get the bits attached to my house fixed by a different contractor, thereby extending the time to restore power.

Solution: allow Hydro workers to repair the equipment that's attached to the house, and bill the homeowner for this service, with the owner's consent.  The owner can still hire their own contractor if they want, but if the Hydro truck is right there, you can have the option of getting reconnected immediately. If the homeowner is not present and doesn't contract Hydro within a certain period of time, Hydro reconnects and bills them. (This is to prevent homeowners who decide to leave the blackout area and go elsewhere from getting caught out because Hydro can't get in touch with them and they have no idea that they need to hire a contractor.)

If this happened, some parties would probably complain that the utility is taking business away from private electrical contractors.  I think this is negligible compared with delays in restoring power, but if it does end up being a problem that needs to be addressed, Hydro could outsource this portion of the work to private contractors through a normal bidding process.

Teach me how to erase an external hard drive with a dead power supply

As I blogged about before, my old external hard drive (a Western Digital Elements) has gone through two power supplies in just over two years.  I was sick of buying new power supplies for it, so I replaced it with a external hard drive that doesn't require a power supply (which I'll blog about after I've used it for a bit).

Now I'm ready to dispose of the Western Digital. 

Problem: to erase it, I'd have to connect it to a computer.  And to do that, I need a working power supply.  And I don't much fancy buying yet another power supply to use only once just to erase a drive I no longer intend to use.

Does anyone know of a way to erase an external hard drive that requires a power supply but the power supply is dead?

Why xmas is a downer

The problem with xmas is it creates deadlines.  Even if you don't celebrate it.  There are two statutory holidays and then a third for new year's, so you have to get your errands done and stock up on what you need before the stores close.  Some people you deal with (clients, friends, businesses you deal with) take time off or go away around this time of year, so you have to schedule your interactions with them around this.  If you want to get a gift for someone, you have to do so by xmas, or before you see them, or in time to ship it to them. If you're invited to a social event and decide to attend, you have to decide what to wear and have it clean for that day and get done up properly and get to the place in time.

Even if you don't celebrate, some of these deadlines may apply to you.  My apartment building had a party and my office had a party.  A friend who celebrates xmas may invite you to their party and you may wish to attend.  Your office might have a Secret Santa, or you may wish to buy a present for a small adorable child of your acquaintance whose family does celebrate xmas.

There are also various areas of life that have administrative deadlines at the end of the calendar year.  You might need to make a TFSA contribution or apply for CPP. 

For me, personally, because my birthday is also this week, I sometimes have administrative deadlines related to my birthday, such as getting my health card renewed.  My birthday also creates deadlines of its own - I spend a quiet, at-home day with indulgent food and drink, which means I need to buy the food and drink and arrange other areas of life so I don't have to go out that day.  (Not to mention that the quiet stay-at-home birthday isn't by choice, it's because everyone's too busy with their peri-xmas stuff that they don't have time to give my birthday more than a cursory acknowledgement.)

And all these additional deadlines come at the darkest time of year.  The sun rises so late and sets so early, and it gets truly cold for the first time since the previous winter, which makes me desperately want to curl up and hibernate.

I think this is genetic.  My ancestors for many many generations were peasants in cold parts of Europe. I'm made entirely out of genes that have always survived the winter by battening down the hatches, huddling around the fire, and eating potatoes. It is against the dictates of every fibre of my being (literally) to be rushing about getting things done in the cold wind and after the early sunset.

These aren't huge stresses, to be sure, but they are additional Tetris blocks.  So when the xmas decorations go up on November 1, it's just a constant reminder that these stressers, many of which I'd rather not do, are imminent.

And all this for something that isn't even meaningful to me!

Half-formed idea: fully automated text message power outage reporting

Picture this: your power goes out, so you pick up your cellphone and text your six-digit postal code to a specific number, and doing so automatically enters in the hydro company's database that there is a power outage in your postal code.

Currently, you can report power outages by phone or internet.  The problem with reporting them by internet is not everyone has internet during a power outage.  The problem with reporting by phone is that there are a finite number of people who can answer phones, so during widespread power outages, wait times to report an outage can be long.  In fact, as I type this, Toronto Hydro has just announced that its phone lines are overloaded and it only wants people to call for emergencies.  I'm not sure if a simple power outage counts as an emergency or if that's reserved for lines down and trees on lines.

Being able to text your outage directly into the database would be faster, require less human intervention, and take up less bandwidth.  It would also help you preserve your valuable phone battery if you don't have a landline, because texting takes significantly less battery power than calling.

A postal code doesn't precisely pinpoint the location of the outage, but it does narrow it down pretty well.  My current six-digit postal code applies only to my building.  In the suburban neighbourhood where I grew up, our postal code applied to only six houses.  It's possible that the postal code will be sufficient information, especially if they're getting multiple reports from a postal code or from a set of adjacent postal codes.

But if the information provided by the postal code isn't enough, perhaps the system could record the numbers that each text comes from, and a human could call or text back for further information if necessary.  It's possible no further information would be necessary because the postal code is a single building like mine, or because there's a general outage in the area, or because someone else in the postal code has already filed a full report.

In any case, automated reports by text would allow for an additional communication pathway that currently isn't available, and would let reports be made faster and more easily, with less time and battery power invested.

It seems like the technology should exist or should be creatable based on other things that already exist (like charitable donations by text message, etc.)

Horoscopes

From the Toronto Star, although I can't find a direct link to the online version. Typos are my own:

This year you often need to spend extra time at work, with an older relative or perhaps at school. Demands on you are heavy, yet meeting responsibilities opens an important door. If you are single, you could meet someone at work or out running errands. Avoid being critical and fussy. You could cause a problem in your relationships this way, which will create distance and hard feelings. If you are attached, take that special trip the two of you often talk about. The good vibes between you will help bypass a hassle or two. Virgo can get picky about details.

Globe and Mail: 

You must define your goals clearly. You must also keep them within realistic bounds. If you can do those two simple things then what you achieve over the next 12 months will overshadow what you achieved in the previous 12 years. It’s your time to shine.

Last year was the first year when my birthday horoscopes didn't turn out to be true by any remote interpretation (they didn't turn out to be outright wrong either, they were just irrelevant), so it will be interesting to see what happens next. I'm definitely not going to meet anyone at work given demographics and hiring patterns.  I don't (to my knowledge) know any Virgos, but I don't think it's fair that they get to be picky and I don't!  And I can't imagine any clear yet realistic goals that could result in achievements that overshadow the past 12 years.

Why do they start selling xmas food so early?

I've already complained about the habit of starting with xmas decorations and whatnot at the beginning of November, but one thing that particularly baffles me is that the grocery store started with the xmas food at the beginning of November.

By "xmas food" I mean food that is intended to be served at holiday parties and food that is intended to be given as a gift - cheese platters, assorted nuts in decorative boxes, those Italian cake things, etc.

I doubt a significant portion of the population is having holiday parties in early November.  And people are going to want to serve or gift reasonably fresh food (or at least convince themselves that they are doing so) so no one is going to buy pastries nearly two months ahead of time, and they're certainly not going to buy a cheese platter that early!

Who's their target audience here?  Do these things even sell early on?

What to do about hanger bumps in the shoulders of your shirts

I have disproportionately narrow shoulders, so I always get bumps from the ends of the hangers in the shoulders of my shirts. Even using fat hangers doesn't solve this problem - it just makes bigger bumps.

But I've finally figured out a quick and easy solution:

While wearing the shirt, wet your hands, and smooth them over your shoulders.  This only takes like 10 seconds and smooths the bumps right out.  The only negative is your shoulders are damp for a couple of minutes, but if you'd rather have briefly damp shoulders than hanger bumps, this is the solution you need.

Imagine if we could see why people treat us the way they treat us

I've been pondering the fact that I've been getting better customer service in recent years, and I've been wondering why this is.  Is it because I'm older and could no longer be mistaken for a teenager?  Does my appearance perhaps somehow reflect the fact that I have more money than I did in the past?  Is it because I've been patronizing many of the same businesses for over a decade and they're starting to recognize me as a repeat customer?  Or has customer service in general improved?

Then it occurred to me that this line of thinking could be extrapolated to all human interactions.  Wouldn't it be interesting if we could see the reasons why any particular individual treats us well or poorly?  How much of it is because of what we're contributing to the interaction?  How much of it is because of how we present superficially?  And how much of it is how they would have treated any person that they were interacting with at that particular time?

To what extent is the media responsible for Rob Ford being mayor of Toronto?

Very little about this Rob Ford saga has surprised me.

I mean, I wouldn't have guessed crack and cunnilingus specifically, but, extrapolating  his public behaviour before becoming mayor, I was completely unsurprised by drunkenness, drug use, sexual harassment, and anger issues.  When rumours of organized crime affiliation first reached my ears (shortly after Gawker first reported on the crack video story - long before the official police reports started coming) my first thought was "That would explain everything!"  When the video of him ranting and raving and threatening to kill someone came out, I was rather surprised that there weren't already similar videos in public circulation.  He strikes me as having enough anger issues that this wouldn't be an unusual occurrence.  (Although maybe that's why there's no video - perhaps it's business as usual Chez Ford?)

Basically, everything that has come to light has been within the range of what I would have expected of him back when he was running for mayor.

So why did so many people not see this coming?

And to what extent it this the media's fault that they didn't?

Heather Mallick has written that perhaps the media has been too polite to Ford. But I think it's eve moreo than that. I think the problem was that the media was automatically treating him as a frontrunner in the 2010 mayoral election. As I blogged about during the last Toronto election, there were some 40 mayoral candidates, but the media treated only a handful of them as remotely viable candidates. And this handful included Rob Ford.

With 40 candidates, surely any viable position must be duplicated in there somewhere.  And, with 40 candidates, surely there must be a few people who are less problematic individuals than Rob Ford.

Should the media have been covering others more prominently and treating them more seriously rather than treating Ford as a front-runner (and for far longer than a municipal election even deserves to be covered for) just because, like, they've heard of him?

But they did treat him as a front-runner, which may have led some voters to think that he must be a viable and reasonable candidate.  Toronto is a city with a lot of newcomers - both from other countries and from other parts of Canada.  We're probably more dependent on the media to contextualize our elections than other communities with fewer newcomers would be.  How many people weren't completely up on Ford's history but were led to believe that he would be a reasonable candidate because the media had placed him in the top 5 out of 40, and then in the top 30 out of 40?


Lately I've been seeing articles  being tweeted into my twitter feed proposing various people as candidates for the 2014 mayoral election.  I'm not happy about this, because the last municipal election lasted way too long and it's even earlier now.  But this also has me wondering whether this premature coverage is leading to the same kind of premature declaration of frontrunners that may have given us Ford in the first place...

How to tell if you've already read a particular library book

Sometimes I come across a book that seems vaguely familiar in concept, but I'm not sure if I've read it already or not.  I don't really care to waste my time rereading something that turned out to be forgettable, but I don't want to not read an interest-sounding or recommended book just because I might have once read something similar.

The library doesn't keep records of which books you've checked out in the past - which makes perfect sense from a privacy perspective, not to mention what a huge-ass database that would end up being.

But I've just worked out a way to figure out if you've checked out a particular book before.  And the solution is beautifully simple:

Search your email.

If you checked out the book by putting it on hold and having them send it to your local library branch, you'll have an email alert that it's ready to be picked up.  If you kept the book until nearly the due date, you'll have an email alert that it's due soon.  (Helpful hint for Toronto Public Library patrons: search your email for the call number rather than the book title, since the email notifications used to not contain the title.)

This won't work if you don't use email alerts, or if you delete your emails, or if your primary method of library use is to browse the shelves.  But if your library transactions habitually pass through your email, you can find a record of what you've taken out of the library in your email.

What I learned from Eddie Izzard

I've mentioned many, many, many times that Eddie Izzard is an inspiration and a role model to me.  I've previously described it as he made me brave, insofar as I am brave, but that doesn't articulate it as well as I'd like.


Then I found the perfect articulation in this article about the Setlist Show:

BR: Another one is Eddie Izzard who we work with a lot; he's a friend. We approached him a long time ago about doing the show, and he kept saying that he just didn't work that way. But then we were doing the Altitude Festival in Austria, and he gave in and did the show...

PP: Half way through his set he just turned to the audience and went, "This is f***ing hard!" and then went back into the set. He just owned the moment. He stepped outside it for a second, but that just gave him what he needed to go back in in an even richer way.

This absolutely encapsulates what I've learned from Eddie Izzard.  Own it.  Whatever the "it" of the moment is, own it. That's what he does when he goes on stage in clothes of any or all genders.  That's what he does when he messes up or gets knocked off track.  And that's what I did the first time I had to supervise a practicum student and had never had a student intern before. "Congratulations, you're my first student! So if I'm going too fast or too slow, skipping over stuff you don't understand or belabouring the glaringly obvious, it's not intentional. Please do let me know and I'll adapt to your needs."  And that's what I did when I bought my condo. "I've never bought real estate before and I'm mildly terrified.  Please answer my giant list of questions, and then I'll probably come back in a few days with another giant list of questions, and then once all my questions are answered I'll stop being terrified and cheerfully hand over all my money."  And that's the basis of my policy of making it clear how confident I am or am not in any statement I make.

It's given me a massive improvement in confidence, credibility, and quality of life.  I'm able to have more pleasant interpersonal interactions and get what I want more often simply by owning whatever is making me feel awkward or nervous or uncomfortable than by being a poseur pretending to be confident in the way that I imagine the people in the situation expect me to.