A book about heeding the miraculous cognitive process we call intuition, "a brilliant internal guardian" that enables us to perceive things before they happen. This book give you a tremendous set of tools for assessing risks, making predictions, and understanding which things you should (and shouldn't!) be afraid of. This book is a wonderful navigational tool for modernity.
I'll add that aside from being an insightful guy, author Gavin de Becker is quite an interesting guy. I recommend digging into any of the podcasts or long-form interviews he's done. See for example this interview with Tucker Carlson, striking in part because Carlson (for once) hardly talks--he simply lets de Becker talk.
[Again, please skip or skim these notes below, they are too long and life is short!]
Notes:
Chapter 1: In the Presence of Danger
1) "Like every creature, you can know when you are in the presence of danger. You have the gift of a brilliant internal guardian that stands ready to warn you of hazards and guide you through risky situations."
2) Striking to see the contrast between violent crime rates in Japan vs the USA. Wow.
3) "If you add up how long their victims would otherwise have lived, our country's murderers rob us of almost a million years of human contribution every year." What a way to frame violence stats.
4) On fact that you pay a much higher penalty after you're victimized if you were in denial of the possibility beforehand, "Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme."
5) "Your safety is yours": on how it's easy to offload your safety (or responsibility for your safety) to others and "investing our confidence without ever evaluating if it is earned." Also: "We trust security guards--you know, the employment pool that gave us the Son of Sam killer, the assassin of John Lennon, the Hillside Strangler, and more arsonists and rapists than you have time to read about. Has the security industry earned your confidence?"
6) Interesting type of creative process here: When the author consults with clients who are receiving anonymous threats, he doesn't ask the client "Who do you think sent the threats?" but rather "Who could have sent them?" They then go through everyone they know who theoretically could have possibly sent the threats and then assign a motive to each one--even a ridiculous one; this is a creative process that typically unlocks the person who did it.
7) "...the best predictions use all the time available." What a great quote, the reader instinctively knows it's true.
8) Pre-incident indicators: "those detectable factors that occur before the outcome being predicted." (we'll see more discussion of this concept throughout the book)
9) The author describes his life story: his mother shot his stepfather when de Becker was 10 years old and his younger sister was two.
10) "After discussing how intuition works for you and how denial works against you, I'll show that fear, which can be central to your safety, is frequently misplaced. ...you'll see that if your intuition is informed accurately, the danger signal will sound when it should. If you come to trust this fact, you'll not only be safer, but it will be possible to live life nearly free of fear."
Chapter 2: The Technology of Intuition
11) On an airline pilot who somehow "knew" to leave a convenience store, later he was able to put together the things that triggered his intuition.
12) A coincidence or a gut feeling is in fact a cognitive process; yet we think conscious thought is somehow better; compared to "the plodding of logic" the human brain "is never more efficient or invested than when its host is at risk."
13) "Rare is the expert who combines an informed opinion with a strong respect for his own intuition and curiosity."
14) "Satellites": de Becker's term for details a client provides but then rushes past; things that are not required elements of the story but are relevant simply because they were mentioned. They're like satellites because they're shot off into space and then later "beam back valuable information"
15) On the liability of judgment, it "gets in the way of your perception and intuition." "With judgment comes the ability to disregard your intuition unless you can explain it logically, the eagerness to judge and convict your feelings rather than honor them." Basically, animals never say, "It's probably nothing."
16) "We, in contrast to every other creature in nature, choose not to explore--and even to ignore--survival signals." "A woman could offer no greater cooperation to her soon-to-be attacker than to spend time telling herself, 'But he seems like such a nice man.'"
17) "We will tolerate familiar risks over strange ones."
18) On loading up our intuition with inaccurate information (or "kangaroo signals" as the author phrases it): At talks, de Becker gives three "indicators" that kangaroos display before attacking a person, none of which is true! The point here is that those phony warnings, weirdly, will stick with you even though they're wrong. Kangaroo signals masquerading as knowledge.
19) On car body language: how you can tell when a car is about to drift into your lane without signaling, or when a car is about to turn right in front of you. etc.
20) "The words 'I know it' are more valuable and the words 'I knew it.'"... "Often [victims] will say about some particular detail, 'I realize this now, but I didn't know it then.' Of course, if it is in their heads now, so was it then. What they mean is that they only now accept the significance. This has taught me that the intuitive process works, though often not as well as its principal competitor, the denial process."
Chapter 3: The Academy of Prediction
21) On dismissing a murderer or a criminal as "just a wacko" or as a "monster," a form of denial of the fact that humans share a proclivity for violence. See for example how if a scientist observes a bird destroying its own eggs it would never say, "Well, that never happens, this bird is just a monster." Rather, he'd conclude that if this bird did it, others might as well, and there might be some purpose in nature or some cause or predictability to it. [I guess the point here is we lose the opportunity to add to our predictiveness, our intuition, if we just dismiss the murderer as a wacko, it's a form of cognitive laziness.]
22) On media reports saying the killer was a shy man who kept to himself, giving the impression that apparent normalcy is an indicator for crime, which it isn't. Perpetuating "the myth that violence comes out of nowhere."
23) "Recklessness and bravado" are features of many violent people." Other features: They don't react to shocking situation like you or I might; They have a perceived need to be in control, control freak-type personality.
Chapter 4: Survival Signals
24) "...one way to reduce risk is to learn what risk looks like."
25) "The capable face-to-face criminal is an expert at keeping his victim from seeing survival signals, but the very methods he uses to conceal them can reveal them."
26) Forced teaming: projection of a shared purpose or experience where none exists. This establishes premature trust. "What a team!" "Both of us" etc. Rejecting this appears rude.
27) Charm and niceness: charm is almost always a directed instrument which has motive. A smile is "the typical disguise used to mask the emotions. Niceness likewise is a decision, not a character trait and it does not equal goodness.
28) Too many details: when people are telling the truth they don't feel doubted so they don't need to marshal additional support in the form of details. "The defense is to remain consciously aware of the context in which details are offered."
29) Typecasting: for example a man might label a woman in a slightly critical way hoping she'll feel compelled to prove the opposite. The defense here is silence because it's a response that the typecaster seeks.
30) Loan sharking: basically this is creating a situation for which reciprocity is expected. Remember that you never asked for any help.
31) The unsolicited promise: this is a reliable signal because it's nearly always of questionable motive. A hollow instrument of speech. He needs to convince you because you are not convinced--meaning: you have a doubt likely because there's reason to doubt. "The great gift of the unsolicited promise is that the speaker tells you so himself!"
32) Discounting the word "no": if the other person refuses to hear no it's an important survival signal, a signal of seeking control or refusing to relinquish it.
33) On "disabling the survival mechanism of your hearing" by jogging with headphones.
34) On victim selection protocols, or certain necessary conditions for a crime or rape.
35) Intuition signals in order of urgency:
fear (which should always be listened to)
apprehension
suspicion
hesitation
doubt.
36) Note also dark humor, which is a "way to communicate true concern without the risk of feeling silly afterward, and without overtly showing fear." Interesting! See the example of the package bomb sent by the Unabomber: one of the people involved said "I'm going back to my office before the bomb goes off." In other words, he indirectly stated his fears and it was exactly what happened.
Chapter 5: Imperfect Strangers
37) "How much time would you have to spend with a stranger before she wouldn't be a stranger anymore?"
38) On asking potentially rude sounding questions to say a babysitter like "have you ever mistreated a child?" Or "have you ever abused a child?" and then listen to the response, bad applicants will likely reveal themselves.
39) On the paradox of trying to see things from the potentially threatening person's perspective but also the idea that the very act of "assuming other people will perceive things as we do" can be a big problem with people who lack a conscience or are psychopathic, etc., You need to see a situation the way the other person sees it but also while knowing that there are people who act in spite of their conscience or in spite of empathy.
40) "Predicting human behavior is really about recognizing the play from just a few lines of dialogue. It is about trusting that a character's behavior will be consistent with his perception of the situation."
41) This is a helpful quote that summarizes a key central idea of the book:
"Think of any situation that many have shared, say, getting to an airport late (but not too late) for a flight. Based on your experience, you can predict some of the thoughts, emotions, and thus behaviors of a harried traveler. Is he likely to stroll? At the ticket counter will he cordially allow others to get in line ahead of him? Will he savor the interesting architecture of the airport? ...Because we are familiar with the airport situation, we find it easy to predict what the traveler will do. It is precisely because some people are not familiar with violent behavior that they feel they cannot predict it, yet they daily predict nonviolent behavior and the process is identical."
42) See also the "rule of opposites": see the example in the photo below of favorable and unfavorable behaviors for a woman who's having furniture delivered to her home:
43) On the RICE evaluation: comparing the reliability, importance, cost, and effectiveness of a precautionary decision to help you decide what resources to apply to your personal safety; it's very cheap for example to put locks on your door to limit the odds of burglary, but you might not want a full security system.
Chapter 6: High Stakes Predictions
44) The story about a man who rented a hotel room on the top floor of a hotel, arrived with no luggage, gave all of his cash to the bellman who escorted him to his room and then asked if there were pen and paper in the room... and then jumped from the windo. This illustrates that in order to consciously predict something we need to know what outcome is being predicted, "knowing the question is the first step towards knowing the answer" per the Zen quote.
45) On understanding the meaning and the perspective beneath and behind the words people choose: it boils down to how a person perceives four fairly simple issues: (JACA): Justification, Alternatives, Consequences, and Ability.
46) Perceived justification (J):
* "The process of developing and manufacturing justification can be observed." Righteous indignation, what you've done is wrong, what you've done angers me; "Anger is a very seductive emotion because it is profoundly energizing and exhilarating."
Perceived alternatives (A):
* "Does the person perceive that he has available alternatives to violence that will move him toward the outcome he wants?" It is valuable to know the goal of the actor. "For example if a person wants his job back, violence is not the most effective strategy since it precludes the very outcome he seeks." With revenge, however, violence is a viable strategy, though not the only one. Note also David and Goliath: David thought he had no choice but to fight despite the fact that he was highly unlikely to prevail.
Perceived consequences (C):
* "How does the person view the consequences associated with using violence?"
Perceived ability (A):
* "Does the person believe he can successfully deliver the blows or bullet or bomb? People who have successfully used violence in the past have a higher appraisal of their ability to prevail using violence again."
47) Note that the JACA prediction model can be used not just with people that also with governments in conflict.
48) Eleven elements of prediction (these work in areas not just involving violence: see for example corporate clients and so on, I wonder if this might work with investing in stocks?):
1: Measurability: how measurable is the outcome? (e.g., "Will a bomb go off during the rally?" is a measurable outcome with clear paramaters, whereas "Will we have a good time in Hawaii?" is unmeasurable and depends on different perspectives on what exactly a good time is) Thus the less measurable or less discoverable prediction is less likely to succeed.
2: Vantage: is the person making the prediction in position to observe context and pre-incident indicators? For example to predict what will happen between two to quarreling people you need to be able to see and hear them.
3: Imminence: is the outcome soon or some remote time in the future?
4: Context: is the context clear to the person making the prediction?
5: Pre incident indicators (PINS): are there detectable pre-incident indicators that will reliably occur before the outcome being predicted? This is the most valuable of the elements: for example, an assassin might try to learn the governor's schedule or he might tell people something big is coming; ideally an outcome would be perceived by several reliable PINS.
6: Experience: does the person making the prediction have experience with the specific topic involved? A lion tamer can predict the attack of the lion more accurately than I can.
7: Comparable events: can you study outcomes that are comparable to the one being predicted?
8: Objectivity: is the person making the prodection objective enough to believe that either outcome is possible? People who believe only one outcome is possible have already completed their prediction. For example, a person who believes that an employee would never act violently is not the right person to do the job of predicting workplace violence.
9: Investment: to what degree is the person making the prediction invested in the outcome? Does he or she have reason to want the prediction to be correct?
10: Replicability: is this "prediction realm" something that can be replicated elsewhere? Note that replicability is useless in high-stakes predictions of human behavior (you can't run "workplace violence tests" like a science experiment).
11: Knowledge: does the person making the prediction have accurate knowledge about the topic?
49) On timing; when it is that the thing starts to happen? "The most advanced concept of prediction has to do with deciding just when it is that a thing starts to happen." In predicting violence, can you wait until something is at its midway point, or do you wait until it becomes a catastrophe? Behavior is like a chain in these cases, there's no simple single cause and effect, thus you want to avoid just looking at a given link in a chain and instead consider the whole chain itself. Suicide and homicide tend to have chains of events leading up to them.
50) Note that the author talks indirectly about the curse of modernity here: we perceive less need for these predictors "because we are at a point in our evolution where life is less about predicting risks and more about controlling them."
51) The next few chapters will bring together the elements of prediction and intuition into a practice.
Chapter 7: Promises to Kill
52) Note that a threat of violence means that the threatener favors words over actions, the intent is to cause fear and uncertainty. "In fact, the death threat is among the threats least likely to be carried out."
53) On threats versus intimidations: conditions to be met; a threat with "if," "or else," "until" or "unless," where the speaker wants his conditions met, he does not want to inflict the harm.
54) "[T]hreats are rarely spoken from a position of power."
55) You should never show fear to a threat or threatener: "...it is the listener and not the speaker who decides how powerful a threat will be. If the listener turns pale, starts shaking, and begs for forgiveness, he has turned the threat or intimidation into gold. Conversely, if he seems unaffected, it is tin. Even in cases in which threats are determined to be serious (and thus call for interventions or extensive precautions), we advise clients never to show the threatener a high appraisal of his words, never to show fear."
56) The context of a threat is far more significant than content ("I'll cut you up into little pieces", "I'll blow your brains out"), "the choice of alarming words speaks more to someone's desire to frighten than of his intentions to harm."
57) On asking yourself "Am I in immediate danger?" See for example if you receive a threatening letter, you will have a fight-or-flight response upon reading it which has nothing to do with the nature of the threat itself. We want to react calmly "because when in alarm we stop evaluating information mindfully."
58) On asking who would be served if you took the actions that you take if you believe the threats would be carried out (basically asking cui bono). "This often leads to the identity of the threatener."
59) "If you can convince an extortionist that the harm he threatens does not worry you, you have at a minimum improved your negotiating position. In many cases, you may actually neutralize the whole matter." (The author gives an example here of a threatener saying, "Pay me ten grand or I'll tell your wife you're having an affair!" where the threatenee responds, "Hold on let me get my wife on the line and you can tell her right now!") "Conversely, reacting with pleading and compliance increases the extortionist's appraisal of his threat."
60) "Disclosing the harmful information oneself is so radical in idea that most victims of extortion never even consider it."
61) Also playing dumb with an extortionist: On saying things like "I don't understand what you're getting at." "What do you mean by that?" until the extortionist states clearly what he's seeking, this causes him to openly "commit to a sleaziness" and it also clarifies whether the extortion is motivated by greed or malice, and it provides a roadmap to his desired outcome. Also: "those who say the shabby words explicitly right from the start are more likely to carry out the threatened act."
62) "Direct threats are not a reliable pre-incident indicator for assassination in America, as demonstrated by the fact that not one successful public-figure attacker in the history of the media age directly threatened his victim first."
63) Note however that threats spoken to uninvolved second parties are more serious: see for example the person informing police that his disturbed cousin said he would shoot the governor; this is very valuable information.
64) Another counterintuitive idea: the presence of a threat lowers risk and the absence of a threat elevates risk. This is hard for people to grasp because it feels counterintuitive; note also police are historically more intrigued by anonymous death threats and apathetic about signed accredited ones: their thinking is that if the signed sender were to carry out the act it would be easy to get them, but this fails to recognize that public figure attackers rarely seek to avoid apprehension; the assassin is different from almost all other criminals.
Chapter 8: Persistence, Persistence
65) Interesting example of a guy who weasels his way into a travel agency, acting almost like a stalker, looking for a business partnership.
66) "Contact is fuel for the fire" "If you tell someone ten times that you don't want to talk to him, you are talking to him--nine more times than you wanted to. If you call him back after he leaves twenty messages, you simply teach him that the cost of getting a call back is twenty messages."
67) "People who refuse to let go often make small requests that appear reasonable... though the real purpose of such requests is to cement attachment or gain new reasons for contact."
68) Note also how the pursuer and the victim start to have something in common: "neither wants to let go. The pursuer is obsessed with getting a response and the victim becomes obsessed with making the harassment stop."
69) Another thing that's fascinating about the example here (the harasser who wants to do a business deal with the travel agent business owner): this guy seeks out the author, a world-renowned expert in this subject, but all he does is give de Becker pushback! He's full of reasons to not do what de Becker recommends... why not just shut the fuck up, stop with the pushback and get humble enough to listen? Why did you go to him in the first place?
70) On "two widely different management plans: 1) change the pursuer, or 2) change the way the pursuer's conduct affects us." Basically the first example involves warnings, counterthreats, police interventions, etc; the second category involves insulating ourselves from hazard, monitoring communications and limiting the impact the situation has on us by not responding. People rarely see that "doing nothing provocative is an option too."
71) The harassed guy assumed the harasser would stop only if someone made him stop but it turned out he would only stop if nobody tried to make him stop.
72) "Our office has several cases of people who have written more than ten thousand letters to one media figure and never attempted an encounter...The issue, then, is not persistence but knowing the differences between communications and behaviors that portend escalation..."
73) Note also that a private detective could get confrontational with a pursuer and then, when he triggered more aggressive behavior in response he could justify his intervention with the very result he triggered! The idea of "not doing anything" never came up.
74) "Believing that others will react as we would is the single most dangerous myth of intervention."
Chapter 9: Occupational Hazards
75) On violence in the workplace, many predictive opportunities, "and there are almost always several people in a position to observe the warning signs" although they are frequently ignored.
76) Pat Cheryl, the original person to "go postal" in 1986.
77) Note that in most workplace killings the person who does it has already given off many indicators: creeping out or intimidating other people, making them uncomfortable, or making them feel threatened, etc.; people can sense this stuff long before the event occurs.
78) The "Scriptwriter" personality: the type of person who asks you a question, then answers it himself: he "writes the script" for his interactions with coworkers and management, in his script he's a good worker, a reasonable person, someone who must always be on guard against ambushes of coworkers and supervisors, etc. You cannot reason with this person because you find he's not reacting to what you say but rather to what he expects you to say: he's reacting to his own script. He alienates his coworkers and ultimately the script becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
79) Here's a checklist of indicators for a perpetrator of workplace violence: an employee who is inflexibility, who has weapons, who's SAD (sullen angry or depressed), with hopelessness, who identifies with other predators or workplace violence, who his coworkers fear, he uses TIME (threats, intimidations, manipulations or escalations), with paranoia, who's critical, who blames, crusades, who has unreasonable expectations, with grievances, who has police encounters, who forces contact (won't let go or go away after fired).
80) Background checks and reference checks are an obvious must to screen out problem employees.
81) Then obtain "developed sources": references from the references who also know the applicant. [Great, great idea here.]
82) Also a good list of meta questions to ask during pre-employment interviews:
* Describe the best boss you ever had and the worst boss you ever had (this uncovers all kinds of potentially important things about the person)
* Tell me about a failure in your life and why it occurred
* What are some of the things your last employer could have done to be more successful? (Are the comments constructive? Angry? Etc.)
* Did you ever tell your previous employer any of your thoughts on ways they could improve? (This is a great follow-up to the prior question that gives you a lot of information of the style of his approach.)
* What are some of the things you're last employer could have done to keep you? (This can uncover a laundry list of unreasonable demands which is tremendous meta-information about the candidate.)
* How do you go about solving problems of work?
* Describe a problem you had in your life where someone else's help was very important to you?
* Who is your best friend and how would you describe your friendship?
83) The idea here is "to disqualify poor applicants rather than qualify good applicants. Those who are good will qualify themselves."
84) On being slow to fire people when you knew they had to leave and having a much worse outcome as a result.
85) On handling difficult firings:
* Don't embarrass or injure their dignity, and definitely don't lead them to believe you're anticipating threats or a hazard from them or you'll write a script for him to follow.
* Make the termination complete, not a gradual separation.
* Do not negotiate! This is the golden rule for any situation with people who refuse to let go.
* Keep the discussion future-based, like "What would you like us to tell callers about where to reach you?" "Where would you like us to forward mail? or "How can we best describe your job here to future employers who may contact us? It also gives the employee the sense that his input has merit here and also coincidentally gets them thinking about what a former employer will tell callers... all of this illustrates consequences of his actions if things go sideways.
* Be direct, don't sidle up to the issue, be matter of fact.
* Cite general rather than specific issues, remember you are not going to be able to convince the employee that being fired is a good idea.
* Remember the element of surprise, the employee should not be aware of the termination meeting ahead of time.
* Time it right: at the end of the day when other employees are departing, a good time would be at the end of a work week, like Friday afternoon.
* Choose your setting, it should be out of the view of other employees.
* Choose your cast, think about who should be present at the firing, typically a higher level manager than the employee usually worked with, someone who can remain calm and retain that calmness regardless of the situation; also another possibility would be a person from management with whom the employee has a good relationship: thus the employee will act as his best self in front of him.
86) On the threat of a lawsuit, per de Becker a threat of a lawsuit is actually good news: it's an alternative to violence. "The problem with lawsuits comes not when they start, but when they end."
87) "I understand you're upset, but the things you were talking about are not your style. I know you are far too reasonable and have too good a future to even consider such things." This is a stellar reaction to an employee who makes threats when fired, it appears to higher self and also shows that you're not afraid or threatened.
88) "All termination meetings, whether they go well or poorly, provide valuable insights into how the fired employee is going to behave later." Also it can be negligent to not warn people who might be the targets of this employee, also it can be negligent to not take back access credentials, to not monitor the employee's departure from the building, etc. Also avoid counter-threats, they make things worse, "Think of violence as interactional."
89) "The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
Chapter 10: Intimate Enemies
90) The author works with the prosecution on stalking aspects of the Simpson criminal trial, and then later works on the civil suit brought by the Ron Goldman family. He cites the OJ Simpson murders as an example of a common crime. "It is, ultimately, an American myth about Daddy killing Mommy--and getting away with it."
91) Describing similar legal strategies or as this author puts it "creative legal excuse making" for wife murderers.
92) [There's an unsettling point here, indirectly alluded to by the author, that the OJ Simpson trial actually misinformed the American public about the true nature of spousal violence and murder.]
93) A long list of 30 different spousal violence indicators, including:
he is verbally abusive
he has battered in prior relationships
he uses symbolic violence (like tearing a wedding photo)
he has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife
he identifies with violent people in films or history
he has a gun that he talks about or jokes about or collects weapons
the woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk, etc.
94) Other paradoxes about spousal abuse and spousal murder: "Being beaten by a 'loved one' sets up a conflict between two instincts that should never compete: instinct to stay in a secure environment (the family) and the instinct to flee a dangerous environment."
95) "I believe that the first time a woman is hit, she is a victim and the second time, she is a volunteer... I believe it is critical for a woman to view staying as a choice, for only then can leaving be viewed as a choice and an option."
96) The phrase "crime of passion" only contributes to our misunderstanding of this violence, most spousal murders happen after the spouse leaves or while she's trying to leave; the majority of husbands stalk their wives first before killing them; it's usually a decision, not a loss of control.
97) "Of all the violence discussed in this book, spousal homicide is the most predictable, yet people are reluctant to predict it."
98) On restraining orders: a piece of paper will not protect you. In fact in many instances it may do the opposite. Also they are a type of "homework assignments" police give women to prove that they're really committed to getting away from their pursuers. "They do make arrests simpler if the man continues his unwanted pursuit." "In fact, if you work back from the murders, you'll find restraining orders and other confrontational interventions alarmingly often."
99) Spousal murder as a result of a rejection of the husband's identity, of his entire "self": "murder in defense of the self" thus a court order won't do anything and many homicides have occurred at the courthouse where the woman was seeking protection orders. (!)
100) What follows here is a handful of examples of murders that occurred in spite of restraining orders; see one example where a man violated his restraining order 13 times. In many instances the murderer then commits suicide: "refusing to accept rejection is more important to them than life itself. By the time they reach this point, are they really going to be deterred by a court order?"
Chapter 11: "I Was Trying to Let Him Down Easy"
101) Two broad categories of stalking: 1) unwanted pursuit by a stranger and 2) unwanted pursuit by someone the victim knows. Stranger cases are very rare
102) "...it's important to remember that men are nice when they pursue, and women are nice when they reject. Naturally this leads to confusion, and it brings us to the popular practice of letting him down easy."
103) On how Hollywood teaches men that persistence gets the girl: "Popular movies may be reflections of society or designers of society depending on who you ask, but either way, they model behavior for us."
104) On stalking: on how once a woman says she does not want a relationship with a man, any more contact after that is essentially a negotiation; if she says she doesn't want to talk to a man over and over again, that is talking to him. "I suggest that women never explain why they don't want a relationship."
105) "Conditional rejections are not rejections--they are discussions."
106) "Best response: No response."
107) "An axiom of the stalking dynamic: Men who cannot let go choose women who cannot say no."
108) Also: "The way to stop contact is to stop contact. ...I suggest one explicit rejection and after that absolutely no contact. If you call the pursuer back, or agree to meet, or send him a note, or have somebody warn him off, you buy another six weeks of his unwanted pursuit."
109) Date stalking cases are similar to abusive relationships in that both partners are addicted to the situation, a type of codependency.
110) Also in these situations restraining orders work best if they're introduced early before the stalker "has made a significant emotional investment or introduced threats and other sinister behavior."
111) On how the stalker will test the woman: see the example of Brian and Catherine: "Can I get you something to drink?" No, but thank you." "Oh, come on, what'll you have?" "Well, I could have a soft drink, I guess." This is actually a significant test of compliance, "finally he's found someone he can control."
112) Discomfort and intuition as important signals to pay attention to.
113) Also using some of the meta-questions from the employment chapter (Chapter 9) in the dating context; asking a man about his last breakup (and evaluate how he describes it); has he had several love-at-first-sight relationships? These are pre-incident indicators, "all of this information is there to be mined through artful conversation."
Chapter 12: Fear of Children
114) On helping parents and others see warning signs and patterns in their children indicating they might be violent.
115) On the mother who sued a record store and the rock band Judas Priest for their record album, which she claimed compelled her son to enter into a suicide pact with his friend. The author testified in this case on behalf of the record store owners, and regrets it.
116) The key indicator here is the lack of all seven key abilities that are beneficial for human beings: the ability to motivate, to persist against frustration, to delay gratification, to regulate moods, to hope, to empathize and to control impulse. Another predictor is chronic anger in childhood.
117) Child abuse is enormous indicator of parricide.
118) Note also the unbelievable example here of the negligence of a school with a young student who committed sexual assault multiple times.
119) On the counterintuitive risks of "hiring guards": "When organizations of any kind are pressured to improve security, a typical response is to hire guards. Everyone's sighs and feels the matter has been addressed, but if guards are not trained or supervised or properly equipped, if there is no intelligent plan for them to follow, their presence can hurt more than help. That's because, having taken this expensive step, everyone stops looking at safety and security."
120) A prisoner in jail ask the author: "You and me had the same childhood, but you're in that nice suit and probably driving a nice car. You get to leave today. You're sitting over there--how'd that happen?" On effective human contact at a particular significant period in a child's life; someone who can be a witness to his experience. "I have learned that the kindness of a teacher, a coach, a police officer, a neighbor, the parent of a friend, is never wasted."; On how this can give a child "alternative designs for self image, not just the one children logically deduced from this treatment ('If this is how I am treated, then this is the treatment I am worthy of')."
121) [The section of the book is very affecting] "Terribly unhealthy families damage children in many ways, but one of the saddest is the destruction of the child's belief that he has purpose and value. Without that belief, it is difficult to succeed, difficult to take risks. Perhaps more to the point, it may seem foolish to take risks, 'knowing,' as such people do, but they are not up to the task."
122) The circus elephant metaphor: using a heavy chain at first but then a very slender rope when the animal is broken/sees no point to escape.
Chapter 13: Better to Be Wanted by the Police Than Not to Be Wanted at All
123) On how the media age brought a type of mass hypnosis into American life: see the 1940s and Frank Sinatra; "Elements in society were pioneering the skills of manipulating emotion and behavior in ways that had never been possible before: electronic ways. The media were institutionalizing idolatry."
124) "I've always wanted to be in the limelight. I wanted attention and publicity for once. My dreams have come true." This is what nineteen-year-old Ruth Steinhagen told police after attempting to assassinate baseball player Eddie Waitkus. [This story inspired the book (and later the movie) The Natural.]
125) The author meets Robert Bardo, assassin/stalker of actress Rebecca Schaeffer; this interaction is creepy on many levels; how Bardo talks about himself, how his ego is so transparent, how he wrote to Mark Chapman, assassin of John Lennon (!); on his narcissism, his hunger for attention, etc.
126) On the strikingly uniform traits of modern assassins: mental disorder, inappropriate communication, grandiosity and narcissism, etc.
127) Ability, belief, and also imitative aspects of assassinations; in the period following a widely publicized attack the risk of other attacks goes up dramatically.
128) On how we should be presenting assassins in the media in a much less positive light in order to reduce the temptation for others; describe him as a loser, not putting up any resistance, as hiding, also showing him in a mangy t-shirt, etc. Thus other would-be assassins would see these images and then not say, "Yeah, that's the life for me!"
129) On avoiding a fatalistic attitude and not taking precautions. "Yes, a committed criminal might well be difficult to stop, but the absence of precautions makes you vulnerable to the uncommitted criminal."
130) On the Monica Seles attack:
* The bodyguards were not actual bodyguards
* They both had taken special notice of the assailant prior to the attack (!)
Chapter 14: Extreme Hazards
131) The disturbing story of Michael Perry. Note also in their search for this particular stalker/murderer they stumbled onto two other mentally ill pursuers of the same celebrity! It really gives you an idea of how terrible it is to be famous.
132) Perry stalked Olivia Newton-John (who isn't named in the book) as well as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor; he was a schizophrenic; also in the Supreme Court case on his situation Perry v. Louisiana ("one of history's most impartial decisions" per the author because O'Connor sat on the court that actually decided in favor of Perry) actually decided that he could not be forced to take psych meds so that he could be "sane enough" to be executed. A famous, complex ruling.
Chapter 15: The Gift of Fear
133) [This is the best chapter of the book, it's a good summary, and in fact I had my wife read just this chapter in lieu of the entire book.]
134) On not applying fear "wastefully"... "trusting intuition is the exact opposite of living in fear."
135) "Real fear is a signal intended to be very brief, a mere servant of intuition. But though few would argue that extended, unanswered fear is destructive, millions choose to stay there... if one feels fear of all people all the time, there is no signal reserved for the times when it's really needed."
136) On the difference between precautions and fear.
137) Two rules about fear that "improve your use of it, reduce its frequency, and literally transform your experience of life."
1) the very fact that you fear something is solid evidence that it is not happening (meaning: if it does happen we stop fearing it and start to respond to it, manage it, etc., or we start to fear the outcome that we predict will come next.)
2) "what you fear is rarely what you think you fear--it is what you link to fear" (fear of public speaking is really a fear of the loss of identity attached to performing badly: this is rooted in the importance of inclusion in society, which is a key to survival.)
138) On the difference between "real fear" and its coiled up energy versus worry, anxiety and panic.
139) On worry: worry is a fear that we manufacture, that is not authentic; usually there's a secondary reward to worry: avoiding change, avoiding admitting powerlessness, a cloying way to have connection with others, protection against future disappointment (worrying about a test gives you the experience of failure now, to rehearse it, so to speak, and then failing that test won't feel as bad when it happens), etc. "The relationship between real fear and worry is analogous to the relationship between pain and suffering. Pain and fear are necessary and valuable components of life. Suffering and worry are destructive and unnecessary components of life."
140) Three tremendously helpful rules on fear:
1) When you feel fear, listen.
2) When you don't feel fear, don't manufacture it..
3) If you find yourself creating worry, explore and discover why. (When worrying, ask yourself, "How does this serve me?")
141) Also on our anxiety to build up linking events to make a worst case scenario: this process "feels like logic but is just an impersonation of logic." "Few of us predict that unexpected, undesired events will lead to great things, but very often we'd be more accurate if we did." See the actress whose car failed, causing her to miss a meeting with an important film exec, but yet directly led to her starting a business with a friend.)
142) "Understanding how the television news works and what it does to you is directly relevant to your safety and well-being... Being exposed to constant alarm and urgency shell shocks us to the point that it becomes impossible to separate the survival signal from the sound bite. ...your survival brilliance is wasted when you focus on unlikely risks."
Appendices:
143) Signals and predictive strategies:
PINS (pre-incident indicators)
Forced teaming
Loan sharking
Too many details
Unsolicited promises
Typecasting
Discounting the word "no"
The interview
Rule of opposites
List three alternative predictions
JACA (Justification, Alternatives, Consequences, Ability)
RICE (Reliability, Importance, Cost, Effectiveness)
144) The Messengers of intuition
Nagging feelings
Persistent thoughts
Humor
Wonder
Anxiety
Curiosity
Hunches
Gut feelings
Doubt
Hesitation
Suspicion
Apprehension
Fear
145) Finally, a good list of dozens of "Questions for Your Child's School" here in the final appendix.
To Read:
Melvin Konnor: Why the Reckless Survive
James Burke: The Day the Universe Changed
***Robert Ressler: Whoever Fights Monsters
David Mamet: House of Games (film)
***John Monahan: Predicting Violent Behavior
***Robert D. Hare: Without Conscience
***Richard Saul Wurman: Information Anxiety
Nathaniel Branden: Honoring the Self
Desmond Morris: Bodytalk: The Meaning of Human Gestures
Jack Henry Abbott: In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison
Linden Gross: To Have or To Harm
Paul Mones: When a Child Kills
Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child
Ernst Becker: The Denial of Death
Edward Gorey: Amphigorey
Richard Schickel: Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity