If you want to be truly intimidating... | Hacker News Reader

If you want to be truly intimidating...

jhnmyr.tumblr.com

72 pointswallflower11 comments

I was seconds away from updating my status with a quote from that entry... then I saw it was from John Mayer and I realized how much grief and sarcasm I'd get for having posted and linked to the source.

The sad thing is, I like a lot of his music so the fact that I was truly intimidated by posting a link by him for fear of what my friends might think of me probably says more about me than it does him (and perhaps speaks to a bit to why Rdio and Spotify had to add privacy controls). Oh well! I'm intimidated by music snobs, I guess. I'll be intimidating another time.

I think he's one of the best guitarists out there today, but his reputation is really mired by the way people perceive his antics off stage.

Or people who genuinely find his music tedious....

Personally, I find the notion of a guitarist boring. I like music, not guitars played expertly.

This isn't the first time his comments have been well received on HN.

I had the same reaction when I read this a few months ago:

http://www.berklee-blogs.com/2011/07/john-mayer-2011-clinic-...

Discussed here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2846949

Don't know much about Mayer, but found it interesting that he deleted the post honoring Steve Jobs after SJ's biography came out and he was quoted as saying that Mayer was "out of control".

http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/ld6th/john_mayer_on_s...

That's a strange thing to do.

He has a habit of deleting almost all of the posts on his tumblr. When he started the account, he actually said he was only going to have one or two posts up at any one time. It's kind of surprising the number he's got up now (although they're almost all photos). The Jobs tribute post could have been deleted out of spite, but he's deleted some other really cool stuff too, so I kinda doubt it.

There was a big hype a while back about how people just wanted to keep it "real". And they would say all kinds of things that, while possibly true, possibly honest, were not constructive or helpful. I love this word "sincere" because it means honest but with a connotation of construction and well-intention. I think if you want to pick whether to be honest or sincere the latter will probably take you a lot further, other things held equal.

I've been amazed how in the US being sarcastic and stretching it to the limit - specially in work places - was seen as "the norm" and "how you should be".

The result is that very few people trust very few people (and that trust is not very large, its more of a way 'i know this guy who do XX because I have leverage').

That's sad. Working in a sincere environment, with good values, is so much better on so many accounts. And it also pays off. Have courage. Be sincere.

Absolutely, and sometimes sincerity is so unanticipated in certain situations that it may be interpreted as some kind of ploy.

But I agree with the post. It's worth it to be sincere. Even when those around you may not be expecting it.

I'm all for being sincere in business. But with girls? Let's be real here ...

Have you tried it? It's about the best strategy I've found. It's scary as hell but it works well.

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